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THE  TEN  LAWS 


OF 

SUCCESS 


By 

JOHN  R.  MEADER  (' 

“GRAHAM  HOOD” 


Author  of  “The  Force  That  Wins,”  Etc. 


BOSTON  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 
CHESTNUT  HILL,  MASS. 


Publisned  by 

The  Business  Man’s  Publishing  Company,  Ltd. 
Detroit,  Mich. 


BOSTON  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 
CHESTNUT  HILL,  MASS, 


Entered  According  to  Act  of  Congress, 
in  the  year  1911,  by 

THE  BUSINESS  MAN’S  PUBLISHING  COMPANY,  LIMITED. 

DETROIT,  MICH. 

la  the  office  of  the  Librarian  of 
Congress 

All  rights  reserved. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  The  Eaw  of  Integrity .  1 

II.  The  Eaw  of  Initiative .  17 

III.  The  Eaw  of  Concentration .  33 

IV.  The  Eaw  of  Attention .  49 

V.  The  Eaw  of  Faith . 63 

VI.  The  Eaw  of  Seef-Reeiance .  79 

VII..  The  Eaw  of  Courage .  95 

VIII.  The  Eaw  of  Economy .  113 

IX.  The  Eaw  of  Temperance .  129 

X.  The  Eaw  of  Compensation .  145 


CHAPTER  I. 

The  Law  of  Integrity. 

One  of  the  present-day  deficiencies  of  the  com¬ 
mercial  world  is  its  failure  to  provide  proper  defi¬ 
nitions  for  the  two  terms  “  success  ”  and  “  fail¬ 
ure.”  There  was  once  a  time  when  the  question 
of  relative  success  was  not  determined  entirely  by 
the  number  of  millions  of  dollars  amassed  by  the 
several  individuals.  In  those  days,  it  is  true, 
money  did  not  count  for  as  much  as  it  does  now, 
for  there  was  less  of  it,  and  the  competition  for  its 
possession  was  not  so  great.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  was  principle  that  counted,  and  the  honorable 
business  man  of  that  era  thought  as  much  of  living 
up  to  his  ideals,  and  preserving  the  integrity  of  his 
character,  as  he  did  of  making  a  fortune.  Study, 
as  one  example,  the  old  Quaker  merchants  who 
then  held  so  prominent  a  position  in  the  business 
world.  They  made  money — plenty  of  it — but 


2 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


they  made  it  so  honorably  that  they  won  the  es¬ 
teem  of  other  men  just  as  they  maintained  their 
own  self-respect. 

Some  men  of  affairs  endeavor  to  prove  that  the 
commercial  standards  of  the  world  have  changed 
during  the  past  half-century.  Whether  that  state¬ 
ment  be  true  or  false,  the  fact  remains  that  the 
basic  principles  of  morality  have  not  changed. 
What  was  dishonest  one  hundred  years  ago  is  dis¬ 
honest  to-day,  and  true  success  is  still  quite  as 
far  from  being  a  matter  of  dollars  and  cents. 

If  illustrative  instances  are  needed,  there  are 
many  of  them.  For  example,  it  was  not  many 
years  ago  that  a  number  of  then-great  American 
masters  of  finance  were  writing  articles  for  the 
magazines,  purporting  to  tell  the  young  men  of  the 
nation  how  they,  too,  might  win  the  laurel  wreath 
of  financial  success.  At  that  time  there  was  a  sort 
of  halo  above  the  heads  of  these  master-builders 
of  the  business  world.  Theirs  were  such  great 
names  that  the  people  stood  in  awe  of  them. 


The  Law  of  Integrity 


3 


Mention  some  of  those  who  were  then  the  most 
prolific  writers,  however,  and  note  how  many  per¬ 
sons  greet  the  names  with  terms  of  reverence  or 
respect.  They  may  still  have  their  wealth — the 
money  which  was  once  regarded  as  the  outward 
and  visible  sign  of  their  triumph — but  the  public 
has  changed  its  opinions  regarding  them.  It  has 
commenced  to  realize  that  “success”  based  upon 
dishonest  practices,  or  upon  one  man’s  ability  to 
take  an  unfair  advantage  of  his  neighbor,  is  but 
another  word  for  “  failure.” 

If  there  is  one  asset  that  counts  for  more  than 
anything  else  in  the  struggle  for  business  success,  it 
is  unimpaired  self-respect.  The  ability  to  look 
every  man  straight  in  the  eye — to  feel  that  nowhere 
in  the  world  is  there  anyone  who  can  justly  charge 
you  with  dishonesty — are  tests  of  character  that 
represent  a  capital  from  which  the  business  man 
may  draw  sufficient  strength  to  enable  him  to  rise 
superior  to  all  adverse  conditions.  Reverses  may 
come — as  reverses  are  almost  certain  to  come  to 


4 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


any  man  at  one  time  or  another — but,  if  he  can 
meet  them  squarely  and  without  fear,  it  is  only  a 
matter  of  time  before  he  will  find  the  way  to 
triumph  over  them. 

The  young  man  who  is  just  beginning  his  busi¬ 
ness  career  can  make  no  greater  mistake  than  to 
get  the  impression  that  there  is  ever  a  time  when 
dishonesty  pays.  It  is  true  that  the  adage,  “  Hon¬ 
esty  is  the  best  policy,”  bears  the  hall-marks  of 
antiquity,  but  the  words  are  just  as  true  today  as 
they  were  when  they  were  originally  uttered. 

Disregarding  the  ethical  aspect  of  the  question, 
one  great  disadvantage  of  a  dishonest  action  is  that 
it  is  so  liable  to  be  found  out.  Thus,  when  a  busi¬ 
ness  man  permits  himself  to  do  anything  that  is 
“shady,”  somebody  is  pretty  certain  to  discover  the 
deception,  after  which  it  is  merely  a  matter  of  time 
when  the  fatal  truth — exaggerated  out  of  all  pro¬ 
portions,  perhaps — will  have  gone  its  rounds.  It 
makes  practically  no  difference  what  sort  of  decep¬ 
tion  it  is  of  which  a  business  man  has  been  guilty — 


The  Law  of  Integrity 


5 


his  reputation  is  gone  as  soon  as  the  fact  becomes 
generally  known,  and  with  it  vanishes  that  confi¬ 
dence  of  the  people  that  makes  business  possible. 

It  is  surprising  how  few  persons  there  are  who 
realize  how  much  success  depends  upon  their  own 
actions  and  thoughts.  In  fact,  many  seem  to  pos¬ 
sess  a  sort  of  instinctive  feeling  that  each  human 
being  is  a  shuttlecock  of  Fate,  a  creature  who  is 
tossed  about  as  the  impact  of  the  battledore  may 
chance  to  direct. 

Such  persons  talk  about  their  “  luck  ” — their 
“  good  luck,”  or  their  “  bad  luck  ” — as  though 
“  luck  ”  were  something  with  which  mankind  had 
nothing  to  do — as  though  the  goddess  who  reigned 
over  man’s  destiny  was  blind,  and  he,  poor  soul, 
was  nothing  more  than  the  innocent  victim  of  her 
whims  and  fancies. 

If  this  were  true — or  if  we  could  logically  be¬ 
lieve  it  to  be  true — there  might  be  some  reason  why 
we  should  rail  at  our  misfortunes,  but  when,  on 
the  contrary,  the  so-called  misfortunes  of  life,  like 


6 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


life’s  good  fortunes,  are  largely  of  our  own  mak¬ 
ing,  our  complaints  about  the  “  bad  luck  ”  to 
which  we  have  been  subjected  have  the  ring  of  ab¬ 
surdity. 

Years  ago  it  might  truly  have  been  said  that 
persons  who  believed  themselves  tormented  by 
“runs  of  bad  luck”  deserved  the  sympathy  of  their 
fellows;  but  that  was  before  scientists  had  inves¬ 
tigated  the  human  mind,  before  the  psychologist 
had  discovered  what  wonderful  creative  forces  we 
possess  in  our  mental  faculties.  Now,  however, 
anybody  who  purchases  one  of  the  recent  works 
on  psychology  in  its  relation  to  the  every-day  life 
of  man  will  find  little  trouble  in  mastering  enough 
of  the  scientific  truth  to  learn  that  health,  happiness 
and  success  are  more  thoroughly  matters  of  the 
Will  than  they  are  matters  of  destiny,  for  the  part 
that  Fate,  or  chance,  may  play  in  our  lives  is  an 
unimportant  one  when  compared  to  the  influence 
that  the  mind  exerts,  even  over  material  things. 

This  is  not  Christian  Science,  or  New  Thought, 


The  Law  of  Integrity 


7 


or  the  teachings  of  any  modern  cult.  It  represents 
the  common-sense  discoveries  of  logical  thinkers 
who  are  at  last  bridging  the  chasm  between  prac¬ 
tical  truth  and  impractical  superstition.  It  teaches 
us  that  a  man’s  ability  to  recognize  and  seize  upon 
opportunity  depends  largely  upon  the  character  of 
his  mental  attitude  toward  the  objects  of  his  de¬ 
sires — that  if  he  is  prepared  to  take  advantage  of 
the  chances  that  come  to  him,  he  will  soon  find  all 
the  opportunities  he  requires  to  free  himself  from 
the  terrors  of  such  imaginary  enemies  as  “  luck.” 
Moreover,  it  also  teaches  that,  once  the  opportun¬ 
ity  has  been  tightly  grasped,  the  ability  to  make 
the  most  of  it  is  purely  a  matter  of  personality,  and, 
lastly,  that  personality  is  itself  actually  nothing 
more  or  less  than  a  creature  of  the  Will.  In  brief, 
man  is,  to  a  great  degree,  self-creative,  and  within 
himself  he  has  the  powers,  or  forces,  by  means  of 
which  life  may  be  made  or  marred. 

Before  any  of  these  laws  of  mental  control  can 
be  put  into  successful  operation,  however,  there 


8 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


must  be  a  firm  foundation  of  character  upon  which 
the  structure  of  success  may  be  built,  and  the  very 
corner-stone  of  this  foundation  must  be  the  quali¬ 
ties  that  we  denote  as  “  honesty.” 

To  comprehend  what  the  term  “  honesty  ” 
really  means,  it  is  not  necessary  to  go  further  than 
the  Bible,  for  there  we  find  a  law  of  business  pro¬ 
cedure  that  has  never  been  surpassed  by  the 
teaching  of  any  code  or  ethical  cult.  This  law 
specifies  that,  while  it  is  entirely  right  that  each 
person  shall  love  himself  and  shall  exercise  due 
care  in  guarding  his  own  interests,  he  shall  also 
love  his  neighbor,  and  make  just  as  fair  a  standard 
in  caring  for  his  interests. 

It  is  all  very  clear — and  very  logical,  too. 
Success — the  right  kind  of  success — is  based  upon 
square  dealings,  and  to  deal  squarely  is  to  carry 
out  the  principles  laid  down  in  the  Golden  Rule, 
for  the  man  who  does  to  others  as  he  would  have 
them  do  to  him  necessarily  shapes  his  life  upon  the 
“  square  ”  model.  At  the  same  time,  it  must  be 


The  Law  of  Integrity 


9 


remembered  that  the  term  “  honesty  ”  has  a  far 
wider  significance  than,  at  first  thought,  one  might 
ordinarily  imagine.  Thus,  many  employes  utterly 
fail  to  realize  that  it  is  dishonest  to  take  their  em¬ 
ployer’s  money  in  the  form  of  wages,  or  salary, 
when  they  have  failed  to  give  an  adequate  return 
in  services  rendered.  Because  they  have  been 
placed  upon  the  pay  roll  and  have  spent  the  speci¬ 
fied  number  of  hours  each  day  at  the  post  to  which 
they  were  assigned,  they  feel  free  to  draw  their 
pay  at  the  end  of  the  week,  entirely  without  regard 
to  the  character  of  the  work  that  they  may  have 
performed.  Yet,  honesty  plays  its  part  in  this 
relation  fully  as  much  as  it  would  if  the  employer 
proved  false  to  his  end  of  the  bargain,  and,  after 
agreeing  to  pay  a  certain  amount  for  service  rend¬ 
ered,  refused,  or  otherwise  failed  to  do  so. 

The  giving  of  short  weight  is  undoubtedly  one 
of  the  meanest  kinds  of  thievery  that  prevails  in 
business  life,  yet  there  are  many  ways  in  which 
short  weight  may  be  given  without  resorting  to  the 


10 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


use  of  the  ordinary  weights  and  measures  of  com¬ 
merce.  The  person  who  shirks  the  work  that  he 
is  expected  to  perform,  is  guilty  of  giving  short 
weight  to  the  man  who  employs  him.  If  he  does 
this  work  only  half  as  well  as  he  is  able  to  do  it, 
he  cheats  his  employer  out  of  just  one-half  of  the 
money  that  he  receives  in  payment  for  these  ser¬ 
vices. 

A  great  many  employes  are  also  of  the  opinion 
that  they  are  the  absolute  masters  of  their  spare 
time,  and  can  spend  it  wisely  or  foolishly  as  fancy 
may  dictate.  Although  quite  willing  to  admit  that 
their  employer  has  the  right  to  say  what  shall  be 
done  during  business  hours,  they  deny  to  him  any 
authority  to  exercise  similar  restrictions  over  them 
when  the  working  day  is  ended. 

The  truth  is  that,  in  addition  to  hiring  our  bodies 
— our  hands  and  feet  and  mouth  and  eyes  and  ears 
— the  man  for  whom  we  work  also  employs  that 
reservoir  of  force  which  we  term  the  mind.  He 
expects  us  to  work  for  him  faithfully  with  all  our 


The  Law  of  Integrity 


II 


physical  powers,  but  he  also  expects  us  to  keep  our 
mental  powers  in  such  condition  that  they,  too, 
may  be  able  to  do  service  in  his  behalf.  We  are 
employed,  not  with  the  idea  that  we  are  to  give  a 
certain  number  of  hours  in  time  each  day  in  return 
for  the  money  we  are  paid,  but  we  are  also  sup¬ 
posed  to  accept  the  moral  obligation  to  see  that  the 
work  performed  is  good  work.  By  working  prop¬ 
erly  during  the  hours  set  apart  for  that  purpose, 
and  spending  the  balance  of  the  time  in  rest,  recre¬ 
ation  and  sleep,  we  maintain  a  condition  of  the 
body  that  enables  us  to  keep  our  part  of  this  con¬ 
tract,  whereas  nights  spent  in  dissipation  unfit  us 
for  the  work  of  the  succeeding  day — by  failing  to 
repair  the  bodily  waste.  As  the  work  that  would 
naturally  be  performed  under  such  conditions  must 
mean  a  distinct  loss  to  the  employer  in  value  re¬ 
ceived,  the  law  of  honesty  requires  that  we  keep 
a  close  guard  upon  our  forces,  even  during  our  idle 
moments. 

To  maintain  one’s  foothold  in  the  business 


12 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


world  it  is  necessary  to  accomplish"  something  that 
is  worth  while  from  a  monetary  point  of  view,  and 
it  is  at  this  point  that  many  young  men  begin  to 
turn  life  into  a  failure.  Sometimes  through  lack 
of  ability,  but  more  frequently  through  want  of 
persistence,  or  absence  of  forethought,  or,  perhaps, 
through  sheer  indolence,  they  display  their  inabil¬ 
ity  to  perform  the  tasks  with  which  they  have  been 
intrusted. 

Under  such  conditions  it  becomes  very  easy  to 
resort  to  another  eminently  dishonest  custom — the 
making  of  excuses.  Unfortunately,  the  origin  of 
this  practice  too  often  dates  back  to  childhood,  for 
?it  is  no  uncommon  thing  for  children  to  gain  the 
impression  that  excuses  will  excuse  them  for  any 
fault  or  failure  of  which  they  may  have  been 
guilty.  Let  them  step  out  of  the  school  sphere  into 
the  active  business  life,  however,  and  they  soon 
discover  that  there  is  no  room  for  the  man  who  is 
not  able  to  produce  results.  Any  attempt  they 
may  make  to  evade  this  responsibility  by  taking 


The  Law  of  Integrity 


13 


refuge  in  the  invention  of  excuses  is  nothing  more 
nor  less  than  real  dishonesty,  for  excuses  are  more 
than  likely  to  be  based  upon  falsehood  and  a  lie' 
is  always  dishonorable,  especially  if  it  is  designed 
merely  to  protect  us  from  the  consequences  of  our 
own  misdeeds. 

A  man  who  has  lived  his  life  so  successfully  that 
he  now  occupies  a  position  of  great  responsibility, 
once  said  to  me : 

“  I  have  seen  many  men  rise  and  fall  in  the 
world,  but  I  never  have  seen  anybody  seriously 
injure  his  prospects  by  telling  the  truth.  When  I 
was  a  very  young  man  I  made  up  my  mind  that 
there  was  nothing  in  this  world  that  was  worth  a 
lie,  and  I  can  safely  say  that  much  of  my  success 
is  due  to  this  fact.  I  have  had  several  employers 
in  my  life,  but  I  never  worked  for  a  man  without 
winning  his  confidence.  I  always  told  him  the 
truth,  and  he  soon  saw  that  I  was  to  be  trusted.  It 
is  one  of  the  laws  of  success.” 

While  it  is  unquestionably  true  that  a  deserved 


14 


'The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


reputation  for  veracity  is  one  of  the  most  valuable 
assets  that  any  man  can  possess,  there  is  probably 
no  single  factor  among  the  many  that  contribute  to 
success  that  is  more  difficult  of  attainment.  The 
man  who  tells  the  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  noth¬ 
ing  but  the  truth  at  all  times  is  certain  to  get  into 
serious  trouble,  for  truth  is  one  of  the  most  danger¬ 
ous  weapons  that  man  can  handle.  “  How  then,” 
you  ask,  “  is  it  possible  for  a  man  to  tell  the  truth 
consistently  and  still  maintain  his  position  in  the 
business  and  social  circles  of  which  he  is  a  part?  ” 

To  speak  plainly,  the  matter  is  largely  one  of 
individual  discrimination.  To  succeed  in  life  it  is 
imperative  that  one  should  be  known  as  a  truth- 
teller,  for  success  is  so  much  a  matter  of  mutual 
confidence  that  it  extends  far  beyond  the  plane  of 
employer  and  employe.  It  is  the  basis  of  all  suc¬ 
cessful  business  operations.  It  is  the  foundation 
of  all  matters  of  finance.  Take  confidence  from 
the  business  world  and  little  would  be  left. 

To  be  a  truth-teller,  however,  it  is  not  necessary 


The  Law  of  Integrity 


15 


that  a  man  should  be  a  fool — that  he  should  go 
about  seeking  opportunities  to  exploit  disagreeable 
truths,  merely  because  he  knows  them  to  be  true. 
No,  it  simply  means  that  he  must  be  one  who  re¬ 
fuses  to  tell  a  lie,  either  to  advance  his  own  in¬ 
terests  or  to  promote  improperly  the  interests  of 
other  people.  He  must  be  a  person  who  can  al¬ 
ways  be  depended  upon  to  give  a  truthful  answer, 
and  if  he  shows  that  he  will  not  lie,  even  to  save 
himself  from  the  consequences  of  his  own  follies, 
that  he  may  curry  favor,  or  that  he  may  improve 
his  own  position  or  that  of  others,  all  men  soon 
learn  to  trust  him.  That  is  what  is  meant  by  the 
expression,  “  telling  the  truth,”  and  the  person  who 
recognizes  this  distinction  between  truth  and  false¬ 
hood,  and  who  lives  up  to  this  ideal,  is  obeying 
the  first  law  of  success. 


i 


I 


CHAPTER  II. 

The  Law  of  Initiative. 

ORDER  is  the  foundation  of  success.  Before 
we  can  accomplish  anything  that  is  really  worth 
while  we  must  see  clearly  what  it  is  that  we  want 
to  do.  Even  the  desire  that  we  call  “  ambition  ” 
and  the  energy  that  we  call  “  initiative,* *  powerful 
as  they  may  be,  are  wasted  if  our  endeavor  is  with¬ 
out  a  well-defined  goal. 

If  you  were  in  need  of  a  suit  of  clothes,  the  first 
thing  the  tailor  would  do  would  be  to  measure  you 
that  he  might  make  a  pattern  by  which  to  cut  your 
coat,  vest  and  trousers.  If  you  were  an  inventor 
and  thought  that  you  had  discovered  something 
for  which  the  world  had  long  been  waiting,  one  of 
your  first  acts  would  be  to  design  a  model.  You 
might  do  it  with  pencil  and  paper,  or  you  might 
make  a  real  working  model,  but  you  would  be 

17 


18 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


very  careful  to  see  that  the  model  worked  reason¬ 
ably  well  before  you  went  to  the  expense  of  con¬ 
structing  the  actual  machine. 

The  same  is  true  about  every  task  that  we 
undertake  in  life,  yet,  upon  the  most  important 
point  of  all — life  itself — we  go  haphazard,  with¬ 
out  regard  to  such  a  factor  as  model,  pattern  or 
plan.  In  fact,  we  are  brought  up  as  if  this  were 
the  proper  way  to  get  the  most  out  of  life,  for 
when  we  have  spent  a  few  years  at  school,  where 
we  derive  a  more  or  less  satisfactory  general  edu¬ 
cation,  we  plunge  headlong  into  the  field  of  action, 
with  practically  no  working  plan  to  guide  us. 

When  we  remember  that  no  great  achievement 
— from  building  a  house  to  painting  a  picture  or 
reconstructing  a  government — was  ever  completed 
until  after  it  had  existed  as  a  finished  product  in 
the  mind  of  its  creator,  the  folly  of  such  a  course 
becomes  obvious.  We  know  that  the  mental  pic¬ 
ture,  at  least,  must  precede  the  drawing  in  outline, 
or  even  the  simplest  plans  and  specifications.  Ac- 


The  Law  of  Initiative 


19 


cordingly,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  more  perfectly 
the  mental  picture  is  formed,  the  more  accurately 
it  can  be  followed — the  more  perfectly  repro¬ 
duced. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  those  who  are  anxious 
to  succeed  should  practise  the  art  of  visualizing — 
the  art  of  painting  mental  pictures — or  making 
mental  plans — so  accurately  and  graphically  that 
it  seems  as  if  they  might  almost  exist  through  the 
sheer  force  of  their  own  expression.  It  is  best, 
when  possible,  that  these  dream-like  creations  of 
ours  should  take  the  form  of  pictures,  that  we  may 
see  in  them  the  finished  product  and  understand 
about  how  they  ought  to  look.  Thus,  with  such  a 
picture  in  mind,  it  is  quite  possible  for  us  to  know 
what  we  ought  to  do.  Before  the  mental  picture 
is  formed,  we  have  only  the  bare  outline  of  an 
idea  at  best — the  first  rough  sketch.  It  lacks  de¬ 
tail.  To  make  it  effective,  this  detail,  or  a  great 
deal  of  it,  must  be  supplied.  The  roughest  sketch 
on  a  scrap  of  paper  may  be  the  germ  of  a  great 


20 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


masterpiece,  but  there  is  little  to  indicate  the  fact, 
and  it  does  not  begin  to  be  convincing  until  we 
make  the  lines  more  regular  and  work  in  the  details 
that  give  the  sense  of  perspective.  And  the  same 
rule  must  be  applied  to  our  mental  pictures.  It  is 
only  when  we  know  how  to  make  them  clear  and 
distinct  that  they  begin  to  furnish  us  with  sufficient 
inspiration  to  enable  us  to  reproduce  them  in  real¬ 
ity. 

From  this  it  may  be  seen  that  the  practice  of 
making  plans  in  the  shape  of  mental  pictures  is  one 
of  the  best  habits  which  we  can  form.  To  picture 
yourself  in  the  position  that  you  most  desire  to  oc¬ 
cupy,  to  see  yourself  in  the  kind  of  house  in  which 
you  most  wish  to  live,  wearing  the  apparel  that 
you  would  most  like  to  wear,  and  associating  with 
the  persons  with  whom  you  would  most  like  to 
associate,  is  one  of  the  best  ways  of  planting  the 
seed  from  which  the  desired  harvest  may  be  real¬ 
ized.  The  clearer — the  more  distinct — you  can 
make  these  pictures  appear  to  you,  the  more  in- 


— 


The  Law  of  Initiative 


21 


spiration  you  will  derive  from  them,  the  more 
chance  there  will  be  of  realizing  the  ambitions 
which  they  portray. 

This  is  a  suggestion  that  anybody  may  follow 
with  profit.  Don’t  mind  if  people  call  you  a 
dreamer.  Remember  that  Fulton,  Newton,  Edi¬ 
son  and  all  the  other  great  inventors,  scientists,  ar¬ 
tists  and  writers  have  been  dubbed  “  dreamers,” 
too.  In  one  sense,  the  charge  was  justified.  They 
were  not  the  sort  of  dreamers  who  wilfully  waste 
their  time  dozing  the  days  away,  but  the  kind  who 
find  in  their  dreams,  their  air  castles,  or  their  men¬ 
tal  pictures,  the  inspiration  that  enables  them  to 
become  useful  producers  of  things  that  the  world 
needs. 

When  the  plan  has  once  been  developed,  how¬ 
ever,  the  next  thing  is  to  put  it  into  execution  and 
it  is  here  that  the  idl e-dreamer  fails.  To  construct 
a  house,  the  preliminary  step  is  to  secure  an  archi¬ 
tect’s  plans,  yet  the  plans  alone  are  of  little  value 
unless  you  have  a  builder  to  see  that  they  are 


22 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


carried  out.  It  is  the  latter  who  must  attend  to  the 
details  and  make  the  structure  a  habitable  one. 

In  constructing  a  career — in  building  the  struc¬ 
ture  that  we  term  “  success  ” — the  same  law  ap¬ 
plies.  In  fact,  the  “  planning  ”  is  the  easiest  part, 
and  will  mean  but  little  if  we  do  not  succeed  in 
visualizing  so  clearly,  or  painting  our  mental  pic¬ 
tures  so  enticingly,  that  we  become  imbued  with  a 
strong  desire  to  make  them  a  reality. 

It  is  no  weak,  half-hearted  determination  that 
will  produce  this  result.  The  desire  that  rouses 
the  will  to  the  action  that  we  denote  as  “  initia¬ 
tive  ”  must  be  so  ardent,  so  keen,  so  determined  as 
to  be  practically  irresistible.  In  other  words,  it  is 
only  by  wanting  a  thing  so  hard  that  we  cannot  do 
without  it  that  we  can  spur  ourselves  to  the  point 
of  realizing  our  ambitions.  It  is  when  desire  has 
bred  this  determination  in  the  heart,  that  the  ordin¬ 
ary  obtacles  of  life  become  but  trivialities,  and  we 
plough  our  way  to  success,  regardless  of  such  fac¬ 
tors  as  opposing  circumstances  and  adverse  envir¬ 
onment. 


The  Law  of  Initiative 


23 


Many  people  seem  to  feel  that  they  are  comply¬ 
ing  with  all  necessary  obligations  if  they  do  what 
they  are  told,  or  “  try  ”  to  do  the  things  that  they 
are  told  to  do.  With  such  ideas  in  mind,  however, 
the  attainment  of  even  relative  success  becomes 
next  to  impossible.  Ask  any  man  who  has  made  a 
success  to  what  principle  he  owes  his  advance¬ 
ment,  and,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  he  will  tell  you 
that  his  rise  from  the  ranks  of  the  wage-earner  was 
due  to  the  fact  that  he  not  only  mastered  all  the 
details  of  his  business,  but  that  he  also  showed  his 
employer  that  he  could  be  depended  upon  to  take 
the  initiative.  He  did  not  spend  his  idle  moments 
trying  to  evolve  a  scheme  to  waste  his  employer’s 
time  without  getting  detected.  He  took  an  interest 
in  the  affairs  of  the  man  who  hired  him.  He  did 
not  have  to  be  told  what  to  do.  He  knew  what 
had  to  be  done  and  he  went  about  the  work  of 
doing  it  so  intelligently  that  the  recognition  of  his 
ability  came  as  a  natural  result. 

Then,  too,  the  man  who  “  tries  ”  stands  a  pretty 


24 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


small  chance  of  success,  for  he  seldom  succeeds  in 
accomplishing  the  results  that  he  is  “  trying  ”  to 
attain.  The  very  fact  that  he  is  merely  willing  to 
“  try,”  presupposes,  from  the  beginning,  the  pos¬ 
sibility  of  failure.  To  say  that  we  will  “  try  ” 
means  that  we  may  fail,  and  there  is  no  surer 
method  of  attracting  failure  than  to  anticipate  it. 

It  is  the  man  who  says,  “  I  will,”  and  who 
means  it,  who  succeeds  in  accomplishing  the  great 
deeds  of  the  world.  The  simple  expression,  “  I 
will!  ”  carries  with  it  the  force  of  a  strong  mental 
determination,  backed  by  an  ardent  desire  to  carry 
it  out.  Thus,  the  man  who  “  tries  ”  finds  the  path 
to  accomplishment  filled  with  many  varieties  of 
apparently  insurmountable  obstacles — obstacles 
that  are  “  insurmountable  ”  simply  because  he 
lacks  the  faith  and  the  enthusiasm  that  would  en¬ 
able  him  to  surmount  them — the  faith  and  en¬ 
thusiasm  that  sincere  desire  alone  can  breed. 

Quite  a  number  of  years  ago  three  young  men 
went  to  Chicago.  They  were  practically  penni- 


The  Law  of  Initiative 


25 


less  young  men,  but  they  had  the  most  valuable 
asset  that  any  man  can  possess:  a  combination  of 
good  health,  upright  principles,  courage  and  ini¬ 
tiative.  As  may  be  imagined,  these  young  men 
found  little  difficulty  in  securing  positions,  and 
while,  in  the  beginning,  they  were  not  particularly 
well  paid,  the  work  gave  them  an  opportunity  to 
show  the  sort  of  material  of  which  they  were  made. 

So  several  years  went  by,  with  each  of  the 
young  men  performing  his  particular  duties  in  the 
same  dry  goods  store,  but  one  day,  when  they  were 
at  luncheon  together,  they  came  to  the  determina¬ 
tion  that  they  would  form  a  partnership  and  go 
into  business  for  themselves.  So  far  as  money  was 
concerned,  they  had  little  to  show  for  their  years 
of  hard  work,  but  they  had  something  that  was 
far  better  than  money,  for,  to  their  original  asset, 
they  had  added  the  factor  of  experience. 

From  that  day  and  for  many  years  afterwards, 
as  we  learn  by  reading  the  stories  of  their  lives, 
their  sole  thought  was  fixed  upon  the  business  to 


26 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


which  they  had  agreed  to  devote  themselves. 
Later,  when  each  had  made  a  vast  fortune,  they 
thought  about  other  matters — became  interested 
in  other  avenues  of  investment — but,  so  long  as  the 
business  required  their  sole  attention  it  received  it. 

It  was  a  hard  struggle  at  first,  for  money  was  no 
easier  to  get  then  than  it  is  in  these  days.  Again 
and  again  they  ran  up  against  obstacles  that  would 
have  discouraged  less  courageous  men,  but  they 
were  born  fighters — all  men  are  fighters  who  are 
inspired  by  an  ardent  desire  to  win — and  they 
fought  the  battles  of  the  business  world  with  per¬ 
fect  confidence  that  nothing  could  defeat  them. 

The  names  of  the  three  young  men  were  Mar¬ 
shall  Field,  Potter  Palmer  and  Levi  Z.  Leiter, 
and  the  story  of  their  victory  is  the  history  of  the 
organization  and  development  of  one  of  the  great¬ 
est  business  enterprises  in  the  United  States. 
Starting  with  practically  no  other  capital  than  the 
belief  that  the  purchasing  public  would  be  glad  to 
buy  goods  from  a  firm  that  treated  everybody  hon- 


The  Law  of  Initiative 


27 


estly,  they  “  won  out,”  but  they  would  never  have 
succeeded  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  fact  that  they 
had  a  well-defined  plan  of  action  and  that  each 
was  inspired  with  the  overmastering  desire  to  see 
this  plan  realized.  With  such  an  inspiration,  it 
was  not  hard  for  them  to  make  this  project  the  sole 
interest  of  their  lives — the  one  interest  to  which 
they  could  devote  themselves  with  an  enthusiasm 
that  made  failure  next  to  impossible. 

What  these  young  men  accomplished,  countless 
others  have  done  and  are  doing.  The  history  of 
almost  any  one  of  the  great  commercial  enterprises 
proves  that  it  is  the  personal  element  and  not  the 
mere  question  of  money  that  counts  for  success. 
Money  is  sometimes  a  good  thing  to  have,  but, 
without  desire-inspired  initiative,  it  will  not  go  far 
enough  to  accomplish  a  great  victory.  Many  men 
of  practically  unlimited  capital  have  gone  out  of 
business  simply  because  they  were  tired  of  losing 
money.  Many  men  without  money  have  scored  a 
victory  through  the  force  that  is  generated  by  the 
determination,  or  the  keen  desire,  to  succeed. 


28 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


Fortunately,  each  of  the  qualities  that  I  have  de¬ 
scribed  may  be  cultivated  and  developed  by  those 
who  wish  to  possess  them.  Others  have  done  it, 
and  what  others  have  done  you  can  do.  In  the 
first  place,  the  law  of  concentration  must  be  mas¬ 
tered,  the  art  of  devoting  every  energy  to  one  ob¬ 
ject;  exercise  your  will  power,  not  only  by  con¬ 
centration,  but  by  doing  things  that  you  do  not 
want  to  do  and,  not  least  of  all,  practice  visualiz¬ 
ing — keeping  constantly  before  your  mind’s  eye 
so  clear  a  picture  of  the  thing  you  wish  to  do  or 
what  you  desire  to  become,  that  the  determination 
to  accomplish  this  result  will  unconsciously  take 
possession  of  you  with  constantly  renewed  strength. 

Many  centuries  ago  an  old  maxim-maker 
evolved  a  phrase  that  sounded  so  well  to  him  that 
he  presented  it  to  the  world  for  its  guidance. 
“  Opportunity  knocks  once  at  every  man’s  door,” 
he  said,  and  since  that  day  mankind  has  jumped 
to  the  conclusion  that  this  sentence  represents  the 
height  of  human  wisdom.  Shakespeare,  writing 


The  Law  of  Initiative 


29 


his  plays  some  hundreds  of  years  later,  accepted 
this  assertion  as  a  foregone  conclusion.  Byron, 
long  after  Shakespeare’s  time,  repeated  the  idea, 
and  it  is  doubtful  if  there  are  many  bits  of  modern 
verse  that  have  been  read  and  praised  more  widely 
than  the  sonnet  in  which  Senator  Ingalls  revamped 
this  time-worn  proverb. 

It  is  not  strange  that,  with  all  this  repetition, 
many  persons  should  have  felt  that  they  must  ac¬ 
cept  this  theory  as  true.  The  poets  have  sung  of 
the  “  chance  that  came  but  once  ” — of  the  oppor¬ 
tunity  that  tapped  so  lightly  at  each  man’s  door — a 
single  tap  in  a  lifetime  of  waiting — and  then  stole 
softly  away  nevermore  to  return.  If  they  fail, 
therefore,  they  console  themselves  with  the  thought 
that  they  were  among  the  unfortunate  individuals 
who  chanced  to  be  asleep  at  the  moment  when 
the  tap  of  opportunity  sounded  on  their  doorpost; 
but,  as  they  can  not  see  in  what  manner  they  were 
to  blame,  they  settle  down  quietly  to  take  things 
as  they  come,  satisfied  that  the  life  they  live  is  the 
inevitable  one  for  them. 


30 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  would  be  difficult  to  find 
any  statement,  either  in  prose  or  verse,  that  is  more 
foreign  to  the  truth.  Opportunity  does  knock  at 
every  man’s  door,  but  it  does  not  steal  up  to  the 
door  like  a  thief  in  the  night,  or,  like  a  mischievous 
boy,  rap  but  once  and  then  run  away.  Instead, 
opportunity’s  call  may  be  heard  at  almost  any 
time,  if  our  ears  are  attuned  to  hear  it,  and,  as  one 
modern  philosopher  has  said  somewhat  colloqui¬ 
ally,  “it  is  even  possible  to  recall  cases  in  which 
opportunity  actually  smashed  in  the  door  and  col¬ 
lared  her  candidate  and  dragged  him  forth  to  sue- 
cess. 

Do  you  remember  poor  old  Mr.  Micawber,  and 
the  patience  with  which  he  waited  for  something 
to  turn  up?  There  are  no  end  of  Micawbers 
walking  the  city  streets  today,  or  holding  down 
poorly-paid  jobs  that  they  may  have  food  and  a 
roof  to  shelter  them  while  they  are  waiting  for  op¬ 
portunity — for  the  opportunity  that,  as  a  rule, 
never  comes.  Mr.  Micawber  did  not  make  much 


The  Law  of  Initiative 


31 


of  a  success  out  of  life,  and  those  who  wait  for 
things  to  come  to  them  are  destined  to  be  just  about 
as  successful  as  he  was.  The  man  who  “waits”  for 
opportunity  to  seek  him  out  is  doomed  to  disap¬ 
pointment.  The  strong  man  goes  in  search  of  op¬ 
portunity  and,  if  necessary,  makes  it  for  himself  by 
sheer  strength  of  determination — the  overmaster¬ 
ing  desire  to  “  make  good.” 


CHAPTER  III. 

The  Law  of  Concentration. 

What  would  be  thought  of  a  pilot  who,  after 
taking  control  of  a  vessel  and  having  been  given 
its  course,  began  to  turn  the  wheel  from  one  side 
to  the  other,  sending  the  ship  from  east  to  west, 
and  then  back  again,  just  as  if  there  were  no  such 
things  as  compasses  and  rules  of  navigation  to 
guide  him? 

Such  a  pilot  would  undoubtedly  soon  find  him¬ 
self  without  a  commission,  and  nobody  could 
blame  the  master  of  the  vessel  for  removing  him 
from  a  post  at  which  he  had  disgraced  himself  so 
signally.  Yet  this  is  precisely  what  many  individ¬ 
uals  are  doing  with  their  lives,  steering  themselves 
into  mishaps  and  failures  from  sheer  lack  of  con¬ 
centration. 

When  used  in  this  connection,  the  term  “  con¬ 
centration  ”  means  the  power  to  fix  the  attention 

S3 


34 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


so  firmly  upon  the  object  in  which  we  are  inter¬ 
ested  that  no  extraneous  influence  can  turn  us  from 
it  or  cause  us  to  become  absorbed  in  other  things. 
It  is  not  a  difficult  statement  to  comprehend,  yet 
the  fact  which  it  embodies  is  one  of  the  most  vital 
truths  that  men  can  learn,  for  it  is  through  the 
power  of  concentration  only  that  we  can  accom¬ 
plish  the  results  which  we  aim  to  attain,  and  the 
greater  our  capacity  in  this  direction  the  more  re¬ 
markable  our  achievements  will  be. 

In  almost  every  instance,  those  who  rank  as 
human  failures  are  individuals  who  have  never 
mastered  the  art  of  concentration.  Instead  of 
keeping  their  mind  fixed  upon  a  single  purpose  to 
the  exclusion  of  all  others,  they  think  about  a 
dozen  things  while  they  are  trying  to  do  one  and 
so  dissipate  their  energies  most  hopelessly.  In  a 
word,  “  concentration  ”  is  the  co-operation  be¬ 
tween  mind  and  muscle,  and  until  this  has  been 
brought  about,  even  a  moderate  success  proves  im¬ 
possible  of  attainment. 


The  Law  of  Concentration 


35 


We  speak  of  “  physical  labor  ”  and  “  brain 
work  ”  as  though  they  were  two  entirety  different 
things,  when  in  reality  nothing  that  we  do  is  so 
unimportant  that  the  two  should  not  co-operate  in 
its  performance.  Even  the  simplest  act  that  we 
perform  makes  its  draft  upon  the  brain,  and  suc¬ 
cess  in  doing  things  depends  largely  upon  the  de¬ 
gree  of  attention  given  to  it. 

Prentice  Mulford  relates  an  experience  of  his 
boyhood  days  in  California,  when  he  was  gold 
digging.  By  his  side  worked  an  old  miner — a  man 
who  had  had  long  and  valuable  experience  in  the 
handling  of  pick  and  shovel — and  the  impatient 
spasmodic  efforts  of  the  youth  caused  him  consid¬ 
erable  amusement.  At  last,  at  a  moment  when 
both  chanced  to  stop  work  at  the  same  time,  the 
veteran  delivered  himself  of  a  few  words  of  good 
advice  to  the  amateur  digger. 

“  My  boy,”  he  said,  “  you  make  too  much 
work  of  shoveling.  Why  don’t  you  put  more 
mind  in  your  shovel?  ” 


36 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


It  was  a  wise  suggestion  and  it  would  still  be  a 
wise  suggestion  whatever  the  field  of  human  en¬ 
deavor  to  which  the  words  might  be  applied.  To 
perform  any  duty  well,  we  must  pay  attention  to 
what  we  are  doing.  The  gymnast  at  the  circus 
could  not  climb  the  rope  to  the  top  of  the  big  tent, 
hand  over  hand,  as  he  does,  if  he  did  not  keep  his 
mind  firmly  fixed  upon  the  details  of  the  feat  that 
he  is  expected  to  perform.  To  all  appearances  he 
climbs  with  his  hands,  but  it  is  really  his  mind  that 
supplies  him  with  the  power  to  ascend.  His 
muscles  help  but  without  the  co-operation  of  the 
mind,  they  would  be  powerless.  It  is  by  the  co¬ 
operation  of  mind  and  muscle — by  concentration 
— that  the  deed  is  performed. 

In  young  Mulford’s  case  the  advice  was  also 
found  to  be  correct.  As  he  said  in  one  of  his 
essays:  “  I  found  that  the  more  thought  I  put  in 
the  shovel  the  better  I  could  shovel;  the  less  like 
work  it  became ;  the  more  like  play  it  became ;  and 
the  longer  my  strength  for  shoveling  lasted.  I 


The  Law  of  Concentration 


37 


found  when  my  thoughts  drifted  to  other  things 
(no  matter  what)  that  soon  the  less  strength  and 
enjoyment  had  I  for  shoveling,  and  the  more  it  be¬ 
came  an  irksome  task.” 

Some  persons  may  smile  at  the  idea  that  so 
simple  a  task  as  shoveling  requires  so  much  help 
from  the  mind,  but  let  us  see  if  it  is  not  so.  It  re¬ 
quires  a  deliberate  mental  effort  to  direct  the  course 
of  even  so  humble  an  instrument  of  industry  as  a 
shovel.  It  is  by  a  mental  effort  that  the  point  of 
the  shovel  is  sent  to  the  particular  spot  where  the 
implement  may  scoop  up  the  greatest  quantity  of 
dirt  with  the  expenditure  of  the  smallest  possible 
amount  of  physical  strength,  and,  finally,  the  dis¬ 
position  of  the  earth  most  effectively  would  call 
for  still  another  co-operation  of  mind  and  muscle. 

And,  if  this  is  true,  how  much  more  necessity 
there  is  for  this  harmonious  agreement  between  the 
mental  and  physical  forces  when  there  are  more 
consequential  duties  to  be  performed.  Although 
we  may  not  have  realized  the  fact,  every  act  that 


38 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


we  do  requires  a  definite  outlay  of  mental  as  well 
as  physical  strength.  Every  thought  we  think 
means  the  expenditure  of  a  certain  amount  of 
energy — a  fact  which  makes  it  easy  to  understand 
that  a  great  amount  of  such  energy  must  every  day 
be  wasted  by  those  who  do  not  comprehend,  or  at 
least,  do  not  obey,  this  law  of  nature.  Instead  of 
making  muscle  and  mind  work  together,  the  mind 
is  permitted  to  work  in  one  direction  while  the 
body  is  working  in  an  entirely  different  direction, 
and  twice  as  much  energy  is  expended  as  would 
ordinarily  be  required. 

If  a  more  definite  object  lesson  is  desired,  here 
is  an  experiment  that  any  person  may  try  for 
himself : 

Go  to  a  gymnasium  where  there  is  a  lifting  ma¬ 
chine  and  see  how  great  a  weight  you  can  lift. 
Turn  your  attention  to  the  work.  Think  of  abso¬ 
lutely  nothing  but  your  determination  to  exert 
every  ounce  of  strength  that  you  possess.  Make  a 
record  of  the  weight  you  have  lifted  under  these 


t 


The  Law  of  Concentration 


39 


conditions;  then,  try  the  experiment  again.  This 
time,  however,  let  your  thoughts  wander  to  every 
corner  of  the  universe  to  which  they  may  be 
tempted  to  stray.  If  you  can  persuade  someone  to 
talk  with  you  all  the  time  when  you  are  lifting,  so 
much  the  better.  The  attention  is  easily  dis¬ 
tracted  when  there  is  no  definite  effort  toward  con¬ 
centration.  Lift  the  machine  when  in  this  frame  of 
mind;  then  compare  the  two  results.  The  dif¬ 
ference  between  them  is  the  lifting  power  of  con¬ 
centration.  Y ou  wouldn’t  have  believed  it,  would 
you?  Such  results  show  why  it  is  necessary  that 
we  should  think  about  the  things  we  are  doing — 
they  make  us  comprehend  why  it  is  impossible  for 
anybody  to  do  really  good  work  automatically. 

Having  learned  so  much  about  the  value  of 
concentrated  effort,  the  next  step  is  to  carry  this 
knowledge  into  all  the  practical  affairs  of  life,  for 
the  truth  that  the  lifting  machine  depicts  so 
graphically  applies  just  as  directly  to  every  other 
act  that  we  may  be  called  upon  to  perform.  It 


40 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


requires  a  certain  amount  of  force  to  button  a 
glove,  to  lace  a  shoe,  to  unlock  a  door.  If,  when 
performing  such  commonplace  duties,  you  keep 
your  mind  fixed  upon  these  acts  to  the  exclusion 
of  all  other  things,  you  probably  spend  just  about 
the  amount  of  energy  that  is  necessary  to  carry 
them  to  completion.  If,  on  the  contrary,  you  per¬ 
mit  yourself  to  think  about  twenty  or  thirty  dif¬ 
ferent  things  while  performing  one  of  these  simple 
acts,  the  chances  are  that  you  have  exerted  a  great 
deal  too  much  energy,  and  the  energy  that  was 
not  required  has  been  lost. 

To  test  the  strength  of  your  power  of  concen¬ 
tration,  set  your  mind  upon  some  specific  object 
and  see  how  long  you  can  keep  it  there — how 
long  you  can  prevent  it  from  wandering  to  other 
things.  Take  a  lead  pencil,  and  see  if  you  can 
whittle  it  to  a  neat,  sharp  point  without  your 
mind’s  once  turning  to  any  foreign  subject.  You 
may  deem  this  too  easy  a  test  to  try,  but,  unless 
you  have  given  considerable  thought  to  the  princi- 


/ 


The  Law  of  Concentration 


41 


pies  of  concentration,  it  is  doubtful  if  you  can  do 
it.  Before  the  task  has  been  half  completed  you 
will  be  surprised  at  the  number  of  things  that  have 
popped  into  your  mind,  and,  if  this  is  true,  it  is 
time  that  you  should  begin  to  practice  some  simple, 
mind-strengthening  exercises. 

When  you  arise  in  the  morning,  commence  the 
concentration  exercises  while  dressing.  See  if  you 
can  lace  one  shoe  without  thinking  of  any  other 
subject  besides  the  lacing  that  you  are  trying  to 
arrange.  Continue  this  practice  while  performing 
every  little  action  that  is  necessary  to  the  com¬ 
pletion  of  your  attire.  If  you  drop  your  collar 
button,  keep  your  mind  fixed  upon  the  task  of 
finding  it  and  picking  it  up  until  it  has  actually 
been  recovered. 

From  these  simple  exercises  progress  is  a  matter 
of  natural  development.  A  good  exercise  is  to 
try  to  read  or  write  in  the  same  room  in  which 
other  persons  are  engaged  in  conversation,  and 
when  you  have  become  so  successful  in  focusing 


42 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


the  will  that  you  are  able  to  accomplish  this  feat, 
it  will  not  be  long  before  you  will  find  that  you 
can  interpose  so  strong  a  resistance  to  distracting 
thoughts  and  things  that  your  mind  will  obey  your 
slightest  command.  Then,  and  not  until  then,  can 
you  use  the  processes  of  the  mind  to  produce  the 
greatest  possible  effect. 

Of  course,  as  may  be  seen,  concentration  is 
largely  a  matter  of  habit,  and,  like  any  other 
habit,  its  development  depends  upon  individual  ef¬ 
fort  and  practice,  for  while  the  simplest  exercises 
may  be  taken  in  the  quiet  of  your  own  room,  it 
is  only  by  actual  experience  in  the  noisy,  discon¬ 
certing  world  that  you  can  put  your  principles  to 
the  test  and  prove  your  mastery  of  yourself.  In 
fact,  as  Atkinson  once  said,  “  you  will  find  that 
it  often  takes  even  more  will  to  turn  away  from 
these  outside  objects  than  to  follow  your  main 
object,  but  you  must  master  these  temptations, 
even  if  in  doing  so  you  find  it  necessary  to  act  like 
Ulysses,  who  made  his  companions  stop  up  their 


The  Law  of  Concentration 


43 


ears  with  wax  lest  they  be  fascinated  by  the  song 
of  the  Sirens.” 

Some  day  when  you  chance  to  be  in  the 
country,  devote  an  hour  to  watching  the  inhabit¬ 
ants  of  one  of  the  big,  busy  ant-hill  cities  that  you 
can  find  without  much  difficulty.  One  of  the  first 
things  you  will  notice  is  that  there  is  no  wasted 
energy  in  the  ants’  methods  of  working.  Before 
they  start  to  perform  any  duty  they  make  it  a  point 
to  find  out  just  what  they  are  expected  to  do  and 
how  they  should  do  it.  They  don’t  go  at  the 
task  blindly,  trusting  to  luck  to  get  it  done  ac¬ 
ceptably.  They  don’t  plunge  into  their  work 
ignorantly,  discovering  and  correcting  their  mis¬ 
takes  as  best  they  may. 

If  you  want  to  see  a  living  example  of  concen¬ 
tration  of  effort  and  energy,  study  the  ant.  Noth¬ 
ing  distracts  his  attention  from  the  task  upon 
which  he  is  engaged.  If  you  thrust  an  obstacle 
in  his  path,  you  may  check  his  progress  for  the 
moment,  but  you  can’t  make  him  forget  the  one 


44 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


object  upon  which  his  attention  has  been  centered, 
for  the  instant  he  has  overcome  the  obstruction 
you  have  prepared  for  him,  he  will  return  to  his 
work  with  renewed  vigor,  as  if  he  felt  the  neces¬ 
sity  of  making  up  for  lost  time. 

Once  the  ants  have  found  out  what  they  are  to 
do,  there  is  no  idling  over  the  task.  They  don’t 
loaf  their  employer’s  time  away,  keeping  one  eye 
on  their  work  and  the  other  open  for  the  appear¬ 
ance  of  the  boss.  On  the  contrary,  when  they 
begin  to  work,  they  keep  steadily  at  it  until  noth¬ 
ing  more  remains  to  be  done.  Don’t  imagine  for 
a  moment  that  the  ants  are  so  foolish  as  to  work  all 
the  time.  They  find  ample  opportunity  to  eat 
all  that  is  good  for  them  and  they  go  to  bed  early 
enough  to  get  plenty  of  sleep.  They  even  have 
their  favorite  forms  of  recreation,  and  when  they 
play,  or  go  off  on  pleasure  excursions,  they  make 
it  their  business  to  have  all  the  fun  they  can ;  but 
— when  they  work — they  work,  and  do  not  stop  to 
wonder  how  they  are  going  to  succeed. 


The  Law  of  Concentration 


45 


The  greatest  aid  to  the  attainment  of  any  pur¬ 
pose  is  confidence  in  our  ability  to  perform  the 
act  that  we  have  set  out  to  accomplish.  Before 
we  can  make  other  people  believe  in  us  we  must 
believe  in  ourselves.  Moreover,  belief  is  one’s 
self  means  something  more  than  self-conceit. 
Some  persons  are  sufficiently  conceited  to  dare  to 
undertake  anything.  The  kind  of  confidence 
that  wins  is  that  which  is  based  upon  a  thorough 
comprehension  of  one’s  ability. 

It  makes  no  difference  what  we  undertake — the 
success  of  the  effort  depends  largely  upon  the 
manner  in  which  we  approach  the  task.  If  we 
start  out  with  the  element  of  doubt  predominating, 
it  is  practically  a  foregone  conclusion  that  we  shall 
fail.  Whenever  I  hear  a  person  say,  “I  am 
willing  to  try,  but  I’m  afraid  I  can’t  do  it,”  I  am 
always  tempted  to  reply:  “What’s  the  use  of 
trying!  ” 

There  is  one  word  in  the  English  language  that 
should  be  avoided  most  assiduously  by  those  who 


46 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


hope  to  succeed.  That  is  the  little  word  “  If.” 
Though  one  of  the  smallest,  it  represents  a  greater 
amount  of  doubt  and  uncertainty  than  any  word 
in  our  ordinary  vocabulary.  Introduce  the  word 
“  if  ”  into  the  conversation  and  its  effect  is  felt  im¬ 
mediately.  Instantly  the  element  of  doubt  pre¬ 
sents  itself — at  once  the  possibility  of  concentration 
becomes  impossible. 

The  prisoner  who  found  a  rusty  nail  and  who 
used  it  to  dig  his  way  out  of  prison  would  never 
have  succeeded  in  attaining  his  desperate  purpose 
if  he  had  given  a  serious  thought  to  the  possibility 
of  failure.  To  carry  out  such  a  plan  meant  that 
he  must  concentrate  all  his  energies — that  he  must 
exercise  the  elements  of  industry,  patience,  care, 
courage  and  diplomacy — and  he,  knowing  that  he 
possessed  these  faculties,  did  not  question  his 
ability  to  make  good.  Personally,  he  may  not 
have  argued  these  facts  out  with  himself,  for  it  is 
not  necessary  that  we  should  do  this.  It  is  suf¬ 
ficient  that  we  possess  that  self-confidence  that  is 


The  Law  of  Concentration 


47 


instinctive — that  self-confidence  which,  so  far  from 
being  self-conceit,  is  actually  an  innate  apprecia¬ 
tion  of  our  own  ability  and  a  genuine  incentive  to 
concentration.  It  is  thus  that  the  law  of  concen¬ 
tration  operates. 


■ 

' 


•  n 

■ 


. 

■ 


.  ! 

. 


\ 


CHAPTER  IV. 

The  Law  of  Attention. 

“  Concentration/’  in  the  commercial  world, 
means  “  attention  to  business,”  and  the  man  who 
possesses  this  faculty — other  things  being  equal — 
is  the  one  who  is  most  likely  to  succeed.  It  matters 
little  whether  he  is  the  employer  or  the  employe, 
the  ability  to  attend  strictly  to  the  matter  in  hand, 
to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  interests,  is  a  prime 
factor  in  the  struggle  for  success.  There  are  some 
men  who  are  able  to  do  several  things  at  the  same 
time  and  do  all  of  them  well,  but  that  is  because 
they  have  their  mental  powers  so  thoroughly  under 
control  that  they  can  instantly  change  their  point  of 
attention  from  one  subject  to  another.  While  this 
gift  is  possible  of  attainment,  it  is  not  easily  ac¬ 
quired,  and  the  man  who  is  not  yet  capable  of 
focusing  his  mind  firmly  upon  one  thing  must 
master  the  art  of  concentrating  in  its  simple  phases 

49 


50 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


before  trying  experiments  with  more  diversified 
interests. 

To  give  proper  attention  to  business  we  must  get 
into  thorough  harmony  with  the  work  we  have  to 
do.  Emerson  once  said:  “  We  must  be  lovers, 
and  at  once  the  impossible  becomes  possible.” 
This  is  but  another  way  of  saying  that  a  man  who 
is  in  love  with  his  work  is  capable  of  achieving  re¬ 
sults  that  never  could  be  attained  by  those  who 
performed  the  same  kind  of  labor  from  motives  in 
which  self-interest  played  the  commanding  part. 

If  a  thing  is  worth  doing  at  all,  it  is  worth  doing 
well,  and  the  only  way  we  can  test  our  capacity 
for  achievement  is  by  actual  experiment,  with  this 
end  in  view.  Experience  will  teach  us  that  the 
difficulty  in  a  task  often  depends  upon  the  point 
from  which  we  view  it.  Sitting  in  an  easy  chair — 
racking  our  brains  to  evolve  some  plan  by  which 
we  may  accomplish  our  aim  with  the  least  possible 
effort — the  problem  sometimes  assumes  gigantic 
proportions  and  we  tremble  at  the  thought  of  the 


The  Law  of  Attention 


51 


obstacles  that  must  be  overcome.  As  we  proceed, 
however,  the  change  in  the  perspective  produces  a 
corresponding  change  in  the  appearance  of  the 
object  at  which  we  have  aimed,  until,  at  last,  we 
smile  to  think  that  we  should  ever  have  hesitated 
to  attempt  so  simple  a  task. 

All  this  tends  to  prove  the  truth  of  the  general 
theory  that  it  is  the  man  and  not  the  business  that 
succeeds.  Many  men  have  made  great  financial 
successes  out  of  the  most  commonplace  pursuits. 
One  laid  the  foundation  for  his  fortune  picking 
over  rags;  another  began  his  career  selling  papers 
or  shoestrings,  or  even  by  blacking  shoes.  In  every 
instance,  however,  you  will  find  that  this  indi¬ 
vidual  was  about  the  most  enterprising  newsboy, 
or  the  best  bootblack  ever  known.  The  study  of 
the  life  of  a  self-made  man  never  fails  to  disclose 
the  fact  that  he  was  the  kind  of  person  who  per¬ 
sisted  in  doing  just  as  good  work  as  he  knew  how 
to  do,  no  matter  in  what  position  he  found  himself. 
The  moral  is  that  success  is  easiest  attained 


52 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


through  merit — through  the  ability  to  turn  out  a 
good  job,  whether  it  is  blacking  boots,  keeping 
books,  managing  a  department  store,  or  operating 
a  great  railway  system. 

Carlyle  tells  us  that  genius  is  the  capacity  for 
taking  pains,  and  his  words  might  be  used  to  help 
in  formulating  a  definition  for  success,  for  the  de¬ 
gree  of  success  attained  invariably  depends  upon 
the  amount  of  pains  the  individual  is  willing  to 
take  with  his  work.  If  he  bestows  a  great  deal 
of  care  and  attention  upon  every  detail  of  the  task, 
he  is  certain  to  succeed — to  some  degree,  at  least. 

There  is  no  undertaking  so  humble  that  it  can 
be  performed  acceptably  without  due  attention  to 
the  matter  of  detail.  Any  contractor  will  tell  you 
that  there  are  degrees  of  efficiency  in  digging,  in 
laying  brick,  or  making  mortar,  just  as  there  are 
in  designing  the  intricate  plans  for  the  construction 
of  the  skyscraper.  Every  woman  knows  that  the 
laundress  who  is  a  ftiere  machine,  and  who  soaks 
and  scrubs  the  clothes  when  her  mind  is  engaged 


The  Law  of  Attention 


53 


with  other  things,  does  not  begin  to  do  her  work 
so  well  as  the  woman  who  pays  attention  to  the 
wash-tub  details.  It  is  easy  to  see  why  the  princi¬ 
ple  should  grow  to  have  more  and  more  effect  as 
the  importance  of  the  task  increases. 

Attention  to  details,  however,  does  not  imply 
that  a  man  must  necessarily  attend  to  all  the  de¬ 
tails  himself.  In  any  big  enterprise  that  would 
be  impossible,  for  a  one-man  business  is  hemmed 
in  by  restrictions  that  prevent  its  growth  beyond 
certain  well-defined  limits.  John  D.  Rockefeller 
could  never  have  created  the  Standard  Oil  Com¬ 
pany  if  he  had  confined  himself  to  the  details. 
He  had  the  genius  for  taking  pains,  but  he  took 
pains  to  construct  a  perfect  organization — a  ma¬ 
chine  that  was  so  complete  in  all  its  details  that 
it  would  run  smoothly  whether  he  was  there  to 
watch  it  or  not.  Instead  of  spending  all  the 
energy  of  his  brain  and  body  in  sticking  postage 
stamps  on  letters  and  opening  oil  wells,  he  exer¬ 
cised  his  genius  in  discovering  and  developing  good 


54 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


men  until  they  were  able  to  do  all  this  work  for 
him. 

The  success  of  Rockefeller,  Morgan,  Harri- 
man,  Carnegie — in  fact,  the  success  of  any  big 
enterprise — is  based  upon  the  operation  of  this 
law  of  attention.  Men  who  are  great  enough  to 
create  such  industries  are  also  great  enough  to  real¬ 
ize  that  their  success  depends  upon  their  ability  to 
deputize  the  actual  work  of  attending  to  details  to 
others.  Not  that  they  ever  take  their  hand  from 
the  lever.  They  are  always  within  call.  They 
see  that  things  run  smoothly.  It  is  their  brains 
that  plan  the  work.  It  is  their  force  that  starts 
the  machine,  but  their  intimate  knowledge  of  the 
situation  tells  them  what  duties  can  safely  be  left 
to  others,  and,  when  they  once  have  found  the 
right  men  to  assume  the  responsibility  of  perform¬ 
ing  these  tasks,  they  let  them  do  it — and  without 
any  annoying  interference  as  long  as  the  work  is 
being  well  done. 

The  methods  that  are  pursued  by  the  master- 


The  Law  of  Attention 


55 


minds  in  the  commercial  world  may  as  easily  be 
applied  to  business  enterprises  of  smaller  propor¬ 
tions.  The  law  of  attention,  like  every  other  law, 
invariably  operates  in  the  same  way,  always  pro¬ 
ducing  the  same  results.  Thus,  the  business  man 
who  has  one  employe  whom  he  can  trust  should 
find  some  means  by  which  he  can  intrust  him  with 
some  of  the  details  of  his  affairs.  If  he  will  do 
this,  his  business  will  the  quicker  grow  to  such 
proportions  that  he  can  afford  to  employ  another 
trustworthy  man  to  whose  shoulders  more  of  the 
details  can  be  transferred.  In  doing  this  it  is  not 
necessary  that  he  should  relax  his  attention  in  the 
smallest  vital  degree.  He  may  still  keep  every 
part  of  the  organization  in  his  own  hands,  plan¬ 
ning  its  future  development  and  making  his  plans 
materialize  until  little  by  little,  as  the  natural 
consequence  of  expansion,  he  can  deputize  prac¬ 
tically  all  the  details  of  the  management  to  others, 
charging  himself  merely  with  the  supervision  of  the 
work. 


56 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


The  man  who  tries  to  charge  his  own  mind  with 
a  vast  horde  of  details  that  might  be  left  to  his  em¬ 
ployes  has  no  time,  or  no  mind,  for  other  things, 
and  opportunities  that  might  otherwise  be  recog¬ 
nized  and  seized  upon,  pass  unnoticed. 

The  alert,  attentive  mind  is  of  far  more  value 
in  the  commercial  world  than  the  slow-moving, 
absorbed  mind.  The  latter  may  make  fewer  mis¬ 
takes,  but  it  misses  more  opportunities.  It  lacks 
the  initiative  that  is  derived  from  physical  energy 
and  self-confidence.  That  is  the  reason  why  the 
boy  who  steps  off  quickly,  and  who  has  an  alert, 
active  eye,  is  usually  selected  for  the  best  posi¬ 
tions.  He  may  not  make  good — the  alertness 
may  not  extend  far  beneath  the  surface — in  which 
case  the  natural  process  of  elimination  eventually 
places  him  where  he  belongs.  But,  the  fact  still 
remains  that  his  apparent  capacity  for  attention  has 
won  for  him  the  first,  and  best,  chance. 

We  should  not  allow  ourselves  to  forget  that 
everything  today  is  gauged  at  a  high  rate  of  speed. 


The  Law  of  Attention 


57 


and  that  it  takes  an  alert  mind,  a  quick  eye  and  a 
dexterous  hand  to  keep  pace  with  the  whirl  of  the 
commercial  machinery.  Y ears  ago,  when  we  were 
running  things  more  slowly,  there  was  some 
chance  even  for  the  idler,  but  today  all  but  the 
active  workmen  are  left  at  the  post.  The  modern 
business  concern  has  no  more  use  for  the  in¬ 
capable  worker  than  it  has  for  the  employe  who 
sits  all  day  with  his  eyes  glued  to  the  face  of  the 
clock  waiting  for  the  whistle  to  blow.  The  clock 
is  still  there,  but  it  is  put  to  a  different  purpose  by 
men  who  succeed.  They  refer  to  it  simply  that 
they  may  see  that  they  are  not  falling  behind  the 
pace-maker — that  they  are  not  consuming  more 
time  than  is  necessary  in  the  performance  of  their 
allotted  tasks. 

The  man  who  oversleeps  in  the  morning,  who 
makes  it  a  rule  to  arrive  at  his  desk  a  few  minutes 
late  each  day,  may  manage  to  keep  his  head  above 
water,  but  that  is  about  all  that  he  can  do.  Y ou 
never  find  his  name  mentioned  in  the  stories  of 


58 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


successful  men  that  you  read  in  the  popular  maga¬ 
zines.  The  few  minutes  that  he  loses  in  getting  to 
his  store,  or  office,  or  the  hour  or  two  that  he 
spends  in  waking  up  sufficiently  to  give  proper  at¬ 
tention  to  his  work,  are  the  very  moments  that  his 
alert  competitor  puts  to  the  best  advantage. 

A  writer  who  must  have  been  a  philosopher 
once  wrote  that  “  God  and  nature  love  a  hustler.” 
Just  make  a  note  of  this  so  that  you  may  remember 
it.  It  is  as  true  as  if  you  had  found  it  in  the  Good 
Book  itself.  In  fact,  the  same  remark  is  there,  or 
one  very  similar  to  it.  Do  you  recall  the  passage 
in  which  Christ  promised  that  “  unto  every  man 
that  hath  shall  be  given?  ”  You  may  have  read 
it  without  understanding  it.  You  may  even  have 
felt  that  it  suggested  a  condition  of  injustice — the 
idea  of  taking  the  last  little  bit  from  the  man  who 
had  only  a  little  and  piling  the  blessings  upon 
the  man  who  already  had  much.  I  have  heard 
people  make  such  criticisms  regarding  this  passage, 
but  this  simply  indicated  that  they  did  not  know 
what  it  meant. 


The  Law  of  Attention 


59 


There  are  several  laws  in  Nature  that  are  as 
inviolable  as  the  law  of  gravitation,  and  one  of 
these  laws  stipulates  that  nothing  shall  stand  still. 
Things  must  move  either  this  way  or  that,  up  or 
down.  In  accordance  with  this  law,  every  day  of 
our  lives  finds  us  either  richer  or  poorer;  either  a 
little  further  advanced  in  the  fight  for  success,  or  a 
little  further  down  the  hill.  The  other  law  is  the 
law  of  attraction,  by  which  like  attracts  like,  and 
the  two  operate  together  to  produce  what  we  term 
our  “  good  ”  or  “  evil  ”  fortune.  In  other  words, 
the  man  who  gets  into  the  right  path  and  who 
travels  the  right  way  finds  things  smoothed  out 
for  him.  The  greater  his  success,  the  more  comes 
to  him,  and  the  blessings  keep  on  coming  just  as 
long  as  he  continues  to  do  the  right  thing  in  the 
right  way. 

One  condition  that  we  must  observe  is  the  ne¬ 
cessity  of  working  as  persistently  as  possible  to¬ 
wards  one  end,  for  no  amount  of  hustling  on  our 
part  will  make  up  for  the  scattering  of  our  efforts. 


60 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


To  win,  we  must  select  a  target  and  aim  at  it  as 
straight  as  we  can,  not  shoot  off  at  a  tangent  in  the 
hope  of  hitting  the  bull’s-eye  on  some  other  fel¬ 
low’s  target  This  is  in  strict  accordance  with  the 
law  which  provides  that  you  will  get  ten  times  as 
great  a  result  if  you  center  all  your  forces  upon  one 
thing  as  you  will  if  you  distribute  this  energy 
among  ten  entirely  different  things.  Thus,  given 
a  proper  amount  of  concentration,  the  hustler  in¬ 
variably  succeeds.  Philosophical  writers  may  say 
that  God  and  nature  love  him,  but  it  is  not  through 
such  favoritism  as  this  that  his  success  is  attained. 
He  simply  can’t  help  winning  as  long  as  he  cen¬ 
ters  all  his  faculties  upon  one  purpose  and  keeps 
up  the  hustling — as  long  as  he  obeys  the  law. 

It  is  important  that  we  should  realize  this,  for 
our  value  to  the  world,  and  incidentally,  to  our¬ 
selves,  is  based  upon  our  ability  to  “  make  good.” 
It  requires  practically  no  brains  to  breathe.  The 
mumbling  idiot  in  the  insane  asylum  succeeds  to 
that  extent.  The  functions  of  digestion  and  assim- 


The  Law  of  Attention 


61 


ilation  progress  in  the  body  of  the  professional 
tramp  or  the  inmate  of  the  poorhouse,  just  as  they 
do  in  that  of  the  man  whose  masterly  mind  has 
brought  millions  into  his  strong  boxes. 

Each  man’s  progress  in  this  world  depends  to  a 
large  degree  upon  the  character  of  the  effort  that 
he  is  willing  to  make,  and  if  he  refuses  to  take  the 
right  road,  erects  barriers  in  his  own  path,  or  hand¬ 
icaps  himself  too  heavily,  his  failure  cannot  prop¬ 
erly  be  charged  to  fate.  It  is  a  disaster  for  which 
he  alone  is  to  blame. 

There  are  many  ways  in  which  we  can  impair 
our  own  usefulness.  Some  of  them  may  seem  like 
very  simple  handicaps — so  light  as  to  be  scarcely 
worthy  of  notice — yet,  if  we  study  them  carefully, 
we  are  certain  to  find  that,  after  all,  they  seri¬ 
ously  interfere  with  our  efficiency.  For  example, 
there  are  people  whose  appetites  are  largely  re¬ 
sponsible  for  their  lack  of  success  in  life — not  the 
appetite  for  strong  drink  alone,  but  the  appetite 
for  food  as  well.  I  know  men  who  eat  so  heartily 


62 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


at  luncheon  that  they  are  good  for  nothing  for  sev¬ 
eral  hours.  It  takes  all  their  vitality  to  digest  their 
food ;  there  is  nothing  left  to  keep  the  brain  active. 

Others  smoke  too  much;  some  play  too  much; 
many  waste  their  time  in  profitless  conversation; 
not  a  few  are  the  victims  of  a  bad  disposition,  for 
any  habit  that  may  make  trouble  for  us — that  may 
cost  us  something  that  we  desire  to  possess,  or  that 
interferes  with  our  advancement  in  life — is  nothing 
more  or  less  than  a  handicap  and  should  be  cast 
off  as  expeditiously  as  possible. 


CHAPTER  V. 

The  Law  of  Faith. 

No  element,  either  mental  or  physical,  plays  so 
important  a  part  in  promoting  success  as  faith. 
With  faith  as  an  actuating  motive  there  is  prac¬ 
tically  no  limit  to  the  possibility  of  human  attain¬ 
ment.  Without  faith,  on  the  other  hand,  next  to 
nothing  can  be  accomplished. 

While  it  is  not  easy  to  fathom  the  mysteries  of 
the  mind,  recent  discoveries  in  psychology  have 
taught  us  that  it  is  a  storehouse  of  the  most  power¬ 
ful  and  subtle  forces  which  may  be  turned  to  our  • 
advantage  if  we  but  learn  how  to  use  them.  One 
of  these  is  the  force  which  we  commonly  denote  as 
“  faith.” 

To  be  a  successful  a  man  must  have  faith — 
faith  in  his  own  ability  to  perform  whatever  he  has 
undertaken,  and  faith  in  the  character  of  the  act, 
or  the  purpose,  to  be  accomplished.  If  he  does  not 

63 


COILEQE  uxttfivr 

JSS&nri  mi  -  1 


IT  ha 


64 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


possess  this  positive  force  he  is  practically  power¬ 
less.  He  may  have  the  plan,  he  may  have  the  de¬ 
sire  to  make  that  plan  a  reality,  but,  without  faith, 
he  lacks  the  force  to  enable  him  to  proceed. 

Let  us  suppose  that  two  men  started  out  together 
— one  with  firm  faith,  both  in  himself  and  in  his 
purpose;  the  other  with  no  such  inspiration.  To 
both,  the  object  to  be  attained  was  equally  clear. 
Both  understood  what  they  were  expected  to  do 
and  how  they  might  best  accomplish  results.  In 
time,  both  of  these  men  would  meet  with  obstacles. 
To  one  these  would  mean  but  little.  “  I  know 
that  I  am  doing  the  right  thing!  ”  he  would  say. 
“  I  know  that  this  is  what  should  be  done  and  that 
I  have  the  ability  to  do  it !  I  am  not  afraid  to  take 
chances,  for  I  know  I  have  a  good  grip  on 
things!  ”  With  such  thoughts  to  cheer  him,  the 
man  who  had  faith  to  help  him  would  press  on  to 
victory.  Though  delayed,  perhaps,  success  for 
such  a  man  is  inevitable,  for  there  is  no  obstacle 
that  cannot  be  overcome  in  one  way  or  another 
when  faith  is  the  force  that  inspires  the  effort. 


’T'L  _  T  c  '  •  » 


I 


The  other  man,  on  the  contrary,  would  face 
his  probJems  from  a  very  different  viewpoint. 

•  W"at;  s  l^e  use?  ”  he  would  persist,  when  the 
first  serious  obstacle  confronted  him.  “  I  knew 
in  the  beginning  that  I  couldn’t  do  this  work.  I 
don’t  see  any  use  in  trying  to  do  it!  It’s  a  waste 

of  energy  to  go  on !  It’s  a  fine  day— a  little  golf 
wouldn’t  hurt  me.” 

The  fact  that  one  man  was  just  as  competent  as 
the  other  could  make  no  difference  under  such 
conditions.  Though  each  had  the  same  advan¬ 
tages,  from  the  standpoint  of  education  and  ex¬ 
perience,  the  man  who  had  the  faith  would  suc¬ 
ceed  while  the  man  who  had  no  faith  would  just 
as  certainly  fail,  though  he  might  give  an  equal 
amount  of  time  to  the  work,  or  even  expend  a 
greater  amount  of  energy  upon  it.  As  Eliphas 
Levi,  the  great  French  Kabbalist,  writing  fully  a 
century  ago,  said: 


To  accomplish  anything  we  must  believe  in 
our  ability  to  accomplish,  and  this  faith  must  be 


66 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


at  once  translated  into  action.  Faith  has  no  ten¬ 
tative  effort;  it  begins  in  the  certainty  of  finishing, 
and  works  calmly  as  though  it  had  omnipotence 
at  its  disposal  and  eternity  before  it.  Dare  to  for¬ 
mulate  the  desire,  whatever  it  may  be ;  then  set  to 
work  immediately,  and  cease  not  to  act  in  the 
same  manner  and  for  the  same  end.  What  you 
wish  for  will  take  place,  and  has  already  begun 
for  you.” 

Of  course,  if  we  were  to  give  imagination  full 
sway  in  devising  feats  that  would  prove  difficult  of 
attainment,  it  is  not  unlikely  that  we  might  even¬ 
tually  reach  the  plane  of  the  impossible,  yet  his¬ 
tory  supplies  us  with  so  many  examples  of  men 
who  have  surmounted  apparently  insurmountable 
obstacles  by  the  strength  that  faith  gave  them,  that 
it  is  not  easy  to  fix  a  sane  boundary  between  pos¬ 
sibility  and  impossibility. 

A  poor,  ignorant  boy,  tending  sheep  for  just 
enough  money  to  keep  his  soul  in  his  body  would 
ordinarily  be  regarded  as  very  raw  material  from 


The  Law  of  Faith 


67 


which  to  make  a  pope,  but  it  was  from  just  such  a 
beginning  that  Sixtus  V.  ascended  to  the  papal 
throne. 

Napoleon,  too,  in  birth  and  breeding,  was  about 
as  far  removed  from  the  throne  of  France  as  he 
could  have  been,  but  he  succeeded  in  raising  him¬ 
self  to  that  station. 

Benjamin  Franklin,  walking  the  streets  of 
Philadelphia  with  a  roll  of  bread  tucked  under  his 
arm,  did  not  appear  to  be  traveling  the  high  road 
to  success.  Probably  there  were  those  who  smiled 
at  the  ungainly  figure,  but  there  came  a  time  when 
people  did  not  laugh  at  Benjamin  Franklin,  or  at 
anything  that  he  had  to  say.  They  were  only  too 
glad  to  let  him  do  their  thinking  for  them,  that  they 
might  profit  by  his  advice. 

If  you  could  make  an  intimate  study  of  the  life 
of  any  really  successful  man  you  would  doubtless 
find  that  faith  and  self-confidence  had  played  the 
most  conspicuous  part  in  shaping  his  career.  Take, 
as  one  example,  the  story  of  Cyrus  W.  Field’s  suc¬ 
cess  in  laying  the  transatlantic  cable. 


68 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success’ 


One  who  knew  nothing  about  Cyrus  W.  Field’s 
struggles  might  imagine  that  it  was  a  very  simple 
matter  for  him  to  carry  out  his  idea — that  all  he 
had  to  do  was  to  suggest  the  plan  and  then  the 
millions  necessary  to  perform  the  wonderful  work 
were  promptly  thrown  at  his  feet.  This,  however, 
was  far  from  the  case,  for,  in  the  beginning,  the 
suggestion  that  it  might  be  possible  successfully  to 
operate  a  cable  across  the  ocean  was  greeted  with 
cries  of  derision.  Nothing  daunted  by  the  fact 
that  all  the  world  viewed  him  as  a  half-crazed  vis¬ 
ionary,  Mr.  Field  persisted  in  preaching  the  prac¬ 
ticability  of  his  project.  Snubbed  right  and  left, 
and  with  doors  closed  in  his  face,  he  pushed  on, 
day  after  day,  until,  finally,  the  tide  turned,  as  it 
always  turns  when  ability  is  backed  by  faith, 
and  persistence;  men  became  wiser;  they  began 
to  see  that  they  might  have  been  mistaken,  and,  at 
last,  some  individuals  were  found  to  advance  the 
capital  needed  to  start  the  undertaking. 

But,  even  then,  the  troubles  of  Cyrus  W.  Field 


The  Law  of  Faith 


69 


were  not  at  an  end.  It  was  one  thing  to  plan  such 
a  gigantic  work;  it  was  quite  a  different  thing  to 
carry  those  plans  into  effect.  It  would  make  a 
long  story — this  tale  of  failure  after  failure  and 
break  after  break.  The  people  who  had  put  their 
money  into  the  scheme  soon  began  to  call  them¬ 
selves  names.  They  said  that  they  had  always 
known  that  Cyrus  W.  Field  was  a  lunatic,  and 
that  it  commenced  to  look  as  if  the  world  would 
soon  have  a  chance  to  call  them  just  exactly  as 
crazy  as  he  was.  The  idea  of  putting  good  hard 
cash  into  such  a  project — actually  throwing  it  into 
the  ocean!  So  they  growled  and  stormed  and 
raged.  Share  after  share  was  offered  in  the  open 
market  by  disgruntled  stockholders,  but  no  one 
would  buy  them  until,  suddenly,  a  day  came  when 
it  was  announced  that  Mr.  Field  had  triumphed — 
the  cable  had  been  laid. 

It  was  faith  and  the  self-confidence  that  breeds 
persistence  that  did  it.  No  other  qualities  in  the 
world  would  have  stood  such  a  test.  Of  course. 


70 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


Cyrus  W.  Field  was  prepared  for  the  work.  He 
had  made  his  plan  and  he  knew  how  it  could  be 
realized.  In  his  mind  the  cable  existed  long  before 
he  had  raised  a  single  dollar  of  the  money  that 
finally  laid  it.  He  could  see  it  stretching  from 
continent  to  continent,  far  below  the  surface  of 
the  water,  and  the  man  did  not  live  who  could  per¬ 
suade  him  that  such  a  project  could  not  be  literally 
carried  out. 

The  success  of  Cyrus  W.  Field  is  another  ex¬ 
ample  in  proof  of  the  familiar  optimistic  theory 
that  those  who  have  the  courage  to  try  their  wings, 
seldom  fail  in  their  attempt  to  fly.  It  is  as  if  there 
was  a  divine  source  of  supply,  unknown  to  us  until 
we  draw  upon  it,  but  ever  ready  to  respond  to  our 
demands,  giving  us  the  strength  we  need  to  attain 
the  goal  to  which  ambition  points  the  way. 

Science  tells  us  that  the  protoplasm — the  struc¬ 
tureless,  organless  organism  that  represents  the 
lowest  plane  in  life — has  within  itself  the  power 
to  create  limbs  as  it  requires  them,  thrusting  them 


The  Law  of  Faith 


71 


out  when  locomotion  becomes  necessary,  and  with¬ 
drawing  them  again  when  the  temporary  need  has 
passed. 

Philosophy  teaches  us  that  a  strong  purpose — a 
determined  desire  that  recognizes  no  defeat — soon 
finds  a  means  to  accomplishment,  which  is  but  an¬ 
other  way  of  saying  that,  given  faith  and  persis¬ 
tence,  all  things  become  possible.  Or,  as  Emerson 
has  more  poetically  expressed  it:  “If  a  god 
wishes  to  ride,  every  chip  and  stone  will  bud  and 
shoot  out  winged  feet.” 

Even  the  most  hide-bound  materialist  should  be 
compelled  to  admit  the  truth  of  his  own  experi¬ 
ences,  and,  if  he  will  do  this,  he  cannot  deny  that 
the  courage,  confidence  and  strength  that  are  bred 
by  faith  and  fostered  by  self-confidence  are  the 
strongest  of  the  world’s  positive  forces — the  crea¬ 
tive  factors  in  life — whereas  fear  of  possible  con¬ 
sequences,  distrust  of  our  own  abilities,  or  doubt 
concerning  the  rightness  of  the  cause  in  which  we 
are  engaged,  are  the  negative  forces  that  interfere 


72 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


with  and  prevent  the  realization  of  even  the  high¬ 
est  purposes. 

The  knowledge  that  we  contain  within  ourselves 
the  forces  that  make  for  success,  and  that  we  have 
only  to  exercise  them  rightly  to  rise  above  the  plane 
of  mediocrity,  should  be  the  greatest  source  of  in¬ 
spiration  that  we  can  have.  If  all  ambitions  are 
capable  of  achievement,  why  should  we  not  hitch 
our  wagon  to  the  stars? 

And  what  difference  does  it  make  if  we  cannot 
understand,  and  science  cannot  explain,  the  nature 
of  the  laws  that  make  such  attainments  possible? 
We  do  not  comprehend  how  these  higher  forces 
operate,  but  we  can  see  the  effect  of  their  opera¬ 
tion,  and  that  should  be  sufficient.  To  decline  to 
take  advantage  of  their  beneficent  aid  because  they 
are  beyond  our  present  understanding  would  be  as 
senseless  as  to  refuse  to  utilize  the  power  of  elec¬ 
tricity  because  it  is  still  one  of  life’s  mysterious 
forces.  We  cannot  see  electricity.  We  are  just 
beginning  to  realize  how  we  can  make  use  of  it  to 


The  Law  of  Faith 


73 


our  benefit,  yet  we  know  that  it  is  one  of  our  great¬ 
est  blessings.  So,  too,  the  great  powers  that  faith 
in  a  high  purpose  calls  into  being  supply  us  with 
the  force  upon  which  success  largely  depends. 
Why  should  we  question  its  power  when  we  wit¬ 
ness  its  operations,  even  though  we  cannot  put  our 
hand  upon  the  reservoir  from  which  it  is  derived? 

Great  as  this  force  may  be,  however,  the  very 
fact  that  patience,  or  persistence,  is  so  vital  a  fac¬ 
tor  to  success,  makes  it  obvious  that  we  must  not 
expect  that  our  ambitions  are  to  be  realized  at 
once,  no  matter  how  much  faith  we  may  have  in 
them,  or  how  consistently  we  may  demand  them. 

It  is  natural  to  be  impatient.  We  want  what 
we  want,  and  we  want  it  now — not  a  month  or  a 
year  from  now,  but  at  once,  that  we  may  proceed 
to  enjoy  it  without  delay.  Common  as  this  feel¬ 
ing  is,  it  is  anything  but  a  virtue.  Instead  of  bring¬ 
ing  our  desires  nearer  to  realization,  it  is  not  un¬ 
likely  to  delay  the  day  of  their  attainment,  for 
the  mental  attitude  that  impatience  creates  exerts 


74 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


so  scattering  an  effect  upon  our  energies  that  their 
force  is  necessarily  weakened. 

Lessons  are  not  agreeable  things  at  best,  and 
many  of  them  are  difficult  to  master,  but  here  is 
one  that  must  be  learned — simply  because  experi¬ 
ence  is  driving  it  home  to  us  every  day — and  the 
sooner  we  learn  it  the  easier  of  attainment  success 
will  be.  Getting  into  a  stew  because  the  things 
we  want  persist  in  hanging  fire  does  not  help  us. 
It  does  no  good  to  lose  our  temper  and  swear  at 
our  ill  fortune.  It  weakens,  rather  than  strength¬ 
ens  us  to  worry  and  fret  when  things  don’t  happen 
just  the  way  we  would  have  them  turn  out,  but  the 
ability  to  realize  this  truth  does  not  come  to  us  until 
we  have  learned  the  lesson  that  patient  waiting  is 
one  of  the  most  valuable  aids  to  persistent  effort. 

At  the  same  time  it  is  necessary  that  we  should 
remember  that  there  is  a  great  difference  between 
the  patience  that  comes  from  contentment  and  that 
which  is  due  to  satisfaction.  “  Contentment  ”  is 
the  one  element  in  life  that  is  absolutely  necessary 


The  Law  of  Faith 


75 


to  happiness.  It  keeps  the  mind  calm  and  hopeful 
without  shutting  the  door  to  opportunity  and  bar¬ 
ring  the  way  to  further  success.  It  is  “  satisfac¬ 
tion  ”  that  exerts  a  stultifying  effect  upon  future 
effort  and  that  prevents  us  from  seeking  for 
things  that  are  better  than  those  which  we  now 
possess. 

If  Edison  had  been  satisfied  to  remain  a  tele¬ 
graph  operator  all  his  life,  he  would  never  have  at¬ 
tained  the  position  of  usefulness  that  he  occupies 
today.  However  contented  he  may  have  been — 
and  he  was  never  an  individual  who  let  ill  fortune 
make  him  miserable — he  was  still  sufficiently  dis¬ 
satisfied  with  his  lot  to  get  out  and  hustle  for  some¬ 
thing  better. 

When  a  man  is  satisfied  to  stay  just  where  he 
is,  there  is  no  place  in  his  soul  for  aspiration. 
Though  opportunity  may  knock  at  his  door  every 
hour  of  the  day  and  night,  he  slumbers  on  as 
peacefully  as  a  dead  bug  in  amber.  Contentment, 
on  the  contrary,  is  vitalizing,  for  the  possession  of 


76 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


this  quality  does  not  in  any  respect  detract  from 
the  strength  of  the  desire  to  push  forward  to  some¬ 
thing  higher.  A  man  is  able  to  “  make  the  best 
of  things  ”  and  still  keep  his  eyes  open  and  his  ears 
alert  for  the  better  chance  that  is  to  give  him  an 
opportunity  to  scale  the  heights  that  he  is  now  un¬ 
able  to  ascend. 

It  is  only  the  student  who  has  delved  deeply 
into  all  phases  of  the  world’s  history  who  can 
tell  how  much  we  owe  to  dissatisfaction.  To¬ 
day,  if  we  desire  to  communicate  with  persons  at 
the  other  ends  of  the  earth,  we  have  speedy  and 
luxurious  means  of  transportation;  or,  if  it  is  not 
necessary  that  we  should  talk  with  them  face  to 
face,  we  have  even  quicker  methods  of  transmit¬ 
ting  our  messages.  Business  transactions  which 
would  have  required  months,  if  not  years,  for  their 
completion  one  hundred  years  ago,  may  now  be  at¬ 
tended  to  in  as  many  days  at  the  most.  It  was 
man’s  dissatisfaction  with  his  slow  means  of  com¬ 
munication  that  brought  these  things  about.  It  is 


i 


The  Law  of  Faith 


77 


his  dissatisfaction  at  his  inability  to  fly  that  is  solv¬ 
ing  the  problems  of  aviation.  The  day  we  become 
satisfied  with  what  we  have  attained,  we  stop — so 
far  as  we  are  able  to  stop — the  vibrations  that 
make  for  life.  On  that  day  we  write  the  word 
“  finis  ”  to  our  list  of  achievements — from  that  mo¬ 
ment  the  process  of  disintegration  and  decay  be¬ 
gins. 

And  all  this  teaches  us  that  there  is  a  force 
within  ourselves  that  makes  for  success.  To  set  it 
in  operation  we  must  first  believe  in  ourselves — in 
our  capacity  to  do  the  work  we  have  planned  to 
do.  Then,  the  match  of  grim  determination  must 
be  applied,  and  the  fire  must  be  fed  by  persistent 
effort,  for  even  the  highest  ambition  will  fail  of 
realization  if  it  is  not  made  the  sole  purpose  of  all 
our  energies. 

Have  you  ever  attempted  to  stop  a  brook  that 
was  on  its  way  to  the  sea?  You  can  dam  the 
brook,  but  it  will  overflow  the  dam  if  there  is  no 
opening  through  it.  To  keep  the  water  from 


78 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


reaching  the  goal  for  which  it  started  you  are  ob¬ 
liged  to  build  a  reservoir  and  supply  it  with  pipes 
as  outlets  for  the  water  that  feeds  it. 

This  is  a  good  illustration  of  the  conditions  that 
exist  when  a  man  starts  in  the  right  way  to  accom¬ 
plish  something  that  he  believes  to  be  worth  while. 
You  may  put  obstacles  in  his  path,  but  he  will  go 
over  them,  through  them,  or  around  them,  for  you 
can  depend  upon  it  that  the  right  kind  of  man  will 
find  the  right  way  to  get  the  better  of  the  most 
stupendous  obstacle  which  you  can  set  in  front  of 
him. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

The  Law  of  Self-Reliance. 

To  take  the  raw  opportunities  that  come  to  us 
and  mold  them  into  a  definite  success  it  is  neces¬ 
sary  that  we  should  retain  in  our  make-up  a  certain 
degree  of  egotism.  We  must,  at  least,  have  suffi¬ 
cient  respect  for  ourselves  to  realize  that  we  can  do 
good  work,  and  sufficient  strength  of  character  to 
be  able  to  defend  our  work  when  we  know  that  it 
is  good. 

For  many  generations  man  has  been  taught  to 
believe  that  there  are  few  offenses  against  decency 
that  are  more  deplorable  than  the  iniquity  of 
“  blowing  his  own  horn.”  He  has  been  urged  to 
let  others  sound  his  praises  while  he  concealed  his 
light  modestly  under  a  measure,  and,  frequently, 
these  maxims  have  been  interpreted  far  too  liter¬ 
ally.  The  successful  men  of  this  day  are  those 
who  not  only  know  that  they  are  competent  to 

79 


80 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


perform  unusual  deeds  but  who  do  not  hesitate  to 
call  the  attention  of  other  people  to  their  ability  in 
this  direction. 

There  is  scarcely  a  leader  of  men  in  any  field  of 
human  activity  who  has  not  ascended  from  a  com¬ 
paratively  lowly  position.  That  these  men  are 
now  at  the  top  of  the  ladder  is  a  fact  that  is  due 
to  a  combination  of  circumstances  for  which  they 
themselves  have  been  largely  responsible.  Had 
they  been  content  to  toil  behind  the  counter  of  a 
country  store,  or  had  they  been  willing  to  sit  all 
day  perched  upon  a  high  stool,  before  a  huge  desk 
weighted  down  with  ledgers  and  journals  and  day¬ 
books,  they  might  have  remained  in  just  such 
places  until  old  age  came  to  release  them  from 
their  self-imposed  burdens.  An  opportunity  ar¬ 
rived  when  they  could  assert  themselves,  however, 
and,  fortunately,  they  had  sufficient  egotism  to  em¬ 
brace  it. 

The  commonplace  phrases  in  praise  of  “  mod¬ 
est  merit  ”  read  well  in  the  copy  books,  but,  as  the 


The  Law  of  Self-Reliance 


81 


commercial  world  is  now  constituted,  modesty  is 
not  always  a  valuable  asset.  If  we  were  to  at¬ 
tempt  to  conduct  our  business  life  upon  such  prin¬ 
ciples  we  should  end  by  making  ourselves  ridic¬ 
ulous.  To  call  attention  to  our  special  abilities, 
however,  does  not  mean  that  it  is  necessary  that  we 
should  go  upon  the  housetop  and  blow  our  horn 
so  loudly  that  all  the  world  would  be  deafened. 
It  does  not  mean  that  we  must  stand  out  in  the 
center  of  the  road,  boasting  about  the  wonderful 
deeds  that  we  have  done,  or  bragging  of  the  ex¬ 
traordinary  achievements  that  we  think  we  may 
some  time  accomplish.  If  we  are  convinced  that 
we  already  have  a  considerable  achievement  to 
our  credit,  there  is  no  ethical  reason  why  we  should 
not  say  so — in  a  quiet,  gentlemanly  fashion — and 
if  there  is  any  way  by  which  we  can  make  that 
particular  achievement  redound  further  to  our  ad¬ 
vantage,  no  false  sentiment  of  so-called  modesty 
should  be  permitted  to  dissuade  us  from  making 
the  most  of  it. 


82 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


A  reasonable  amount  of  egotism  is  necessary 
in  constructing  a  successful  career,  yet  this  factor 
loses  its  beneficent  qualities  as  soon  as  it  has  passed 
its  proper  limitations.  A  constructive  force  at  first, 
it  becomes  a  destructive  force  if  carried  to  excess. 
Like  many  of  the  medicinal  substances  mentioned 
in  the  pharmacopoeia,  egotism  may  be  made  to 
preserve  or  to  destroy. 

To  define  the  sane  limits  of  egotism  is  not  a 
difficult  matter.  Its  proper  bounds  are  clearly 
marked  by  “  truth,”  for  the  man  who  adheres  to 
the  whole  truth  in  exploiting  his  own  abilities  is  in 
little  danger  of  going  too  far.  To  speak  of  the 
merits  that  we  actually  possess  is  not  the  crime  that 
it  is  to  boast  about  qualities  that  exist  only  in  the 
imagination,  for  it  is  more  dangerous  to  hide  our 
lights  beneath  a  cloak  of  timidity  than  it  is  to  blow 
our  own  horns  frankly  when  we  know  that  we 
possess  the  capacity  for  great  achievements. 

There  is  a  disease  to  which  the  French  physi¬ 
cians  have  given  an  extremely  expressive  name — 


The  Law  of  Self-Reliance 


83 


“  The  Folly  of  Doubt.”  We  may  not  recognize 
the  ailment  by  this  title,  yet  the  American  people 
are  quite  as  subject  to  it  as  their  more  tempera¬ 
mental  cousin,  the  Frenchman.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  there  is  no  more  deleterious  influence  in  mod¬ 
ern  life  than  this  quality  of  mind.  If  you  are 
subject  to  it,  if  you  feel  doubtful  as  to  your  ability 
to  succeed  in  an  enterprise  that  you  have  under¬ 
taken,  it  is  safe  to  predict  that  your  worst  fears 
will  be  realized.  Failure  becomes  almost  as  cer¬ 
tain  as  if  it  were  preordained. 

It  is  a  generally  admitted  fact  that  we  get  just 
about  what  we  look  for  in  this  world.  If  we  look 
for  health,  we  are  far  more  likely  to  find  it  than 
we  would  be  if  we  were  to  spend  our  time  in  an 
introspective  search  for  obscure  aches  or  pains.  If 
we  look  for  happiness  and  faith  and  love  and  suc¬ 
cess,  the  chances  of  realizing  these  qualities  are 
far  greater  than  they  would  be  if  we  were  to  face 
the  world  with  bitter  complainings,  or  with  hatred, 
injustice,  uncharitableness,  and  all  the  other 


84 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


demons  of  doubt  in  full  possession  of  our  soul.  To 
believe  that  we  are  to  enjoy  health  and  happiness 
and  every  sort  of  material  success  is  half  the 
battle.  If  we  are  not  on  the  lookout  for  these 
things  we  stand  a  very  poor  chance  of  finding 
them. 

Doubt  acts  like  a  wet  blanket  upon  every  kind 
of  endeavor.  If  not  actually  a  poison — in  the 
chemical  sense  of  the  word — its  action  is  just  as 
injurious  when  not  suppressed.  The  successful 
man  is  invariably  a  self-confident  man,  sometimes 
almost  an  egotist.  Y ou  may  not  approve  of  all  his 
methods,  but  there  is  no  “  folly  of  doubt  ”  in  his 
blood.  When  he  puts  his  hand  to  the  plough 
there  is  no  turning  back  until  the  end  of  the  fur¬ 
row  has  been  reached.  Although  he  may  take 
some  pretty  big  risks,  he  is  not  a  gambler  with 
fate.  It  is  not  upon  chance  that  he  stakes  his  all, 
but  upon  his  belief  in  his  own  ability  to  “  make 
good.”  And  he  does  make  good.  Belief  in  him¬ 
self  makes  him  strike  with  confidence.  There  is 


The  Law  of  Self-Reliance 


85 


no  doubt,  no  hesitation,  no  half-heartedness  in  such 
a  blow. 

The  conduct  of  the  unsuccessful  man — the  men¬ 
tal  viewpoint  that  he  assumes  in  looking  at  things — 
places  him  in  direct  antithesis  to  the  man  who  suc¬ 
ceeds.  Where  the  latter  planted,  with  perfect  con¬ 
fidence  that  the  harvest  would  repay  him  for  his 
expenditures  of  money  and  time  and  energy,  the 
former  wraps  himself  in  the  cold,  wet  blanket  of 
doubt,  thus  chilling  and  devitalizing  the  seed  be¬ 
fore  it  has  been  planted. 

There  are  two  ways  in  which  a  thing  may  be 
done:  the  right  way  and  the  wrong  way.  The 
right  way  goes  straight  to  the  point,  accomplish¬ 
ing  the  maximum  result  with  the  minimum  expen¬ 
diture  of  effort;  the  wrong  way  falters  as  if  un¬ 
certain  as  to  the  direction  to  take,  with  the  result 
that  both  time  and  energy  are  lost  in  debating  a 
point  that  might  otherwise  be  settled  in  an  instant. 
Thus,  many  men  have  failed,  not  because  their 
ideas  were  not  good,  but  simply  for  the  reason  that 


86 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


they  lacked  the  self-reliance  necessary  to  put  them 
into  operation.  With  another  grain  of  egotism  in 
their  nature  they  would  have  had  courage  enough 
to  take  the  plunge,  even  though  it  required  assum¬ 
ing  a  certain  degree  of  risk. 

It  is  strength  that  wins  in  the  commercial  world 
today — the  strength  that  is  inspired  by  confident 
reliance  upon  ourselves  and  upon  the  purpose  to 
which  we  have  bent  our  efforts.  Strength  such  as 
this  comes  from  positive  thoughts  and  positive 
methods.  Weak  people  always  lean  heavily  on 
others.  They  borrow  other  people’s  methods  and 
yet  evolve  none  of  their  own.  Given  an  opportun¬ 
ity  to  make  good,  they  are  usually  afraid  to  accept 
it.  Fearful  of  the  possibility  of  failure,  they  have 
not  sufficient  love  of  self,  or  respect  for  self,  to 
give  them  the  strength  to  win. 

Such  a  man  may  be  able  to  do  what  he  is  told 
to  do,  and  those  who  are  in  need  of  this  particular 
kind  of  machine  may  utilize  his  services  as  long  as 
they  are  of  value.  His  employers  do  not  keep 


The  Law  of  Self-Reliance 


87 


him  on  their  pay-roll  very  long,  however.  Despite 
all  he  can  seem  to  do,  his  jobs  slip  away  from  him 
a  little  more  easily  than  he  can  replace  them.  The 
trouble  is  that  no  one  regards  him  as  a  permanent 
fixture. 

Self-reliance  has  an  air  of  its  own.  It  shows 
itself  in  the  eye  of  the  man  who  possesses  it — in  the 
poise  of  his  shoulders — in  the  way  in  which  he 
walks.  He  steps  off  firmly — positively — and 
those  who  meet  him  are  instantly  impressed  by  the 
belief  that  here  is  a  man  who  is  capable  of  assum¬ 
ing  responsibilities.  Let  that  idea  once  get  abroad, 
and  his  place  in  the  world  is  assured. 

At  the  same  time,  all  these  ends  are  defeated  if 
the  element  of  egotism  is  permitted  to  become  the 
dominant  note  in  the  character  of  the  person  pos¬ 
sessing  it,  for  the  moment  that  self-confidence  be¬ 
comes  self-complacence  it  defeats  itself  and  its 
usefulness  is  ended.  Self-complacence  is  an  at¬ 
tribute  of  weakness,  not  of  strength.  Instead  of 
aiding  in  the  attainment  of  success,  its  tendency  is 


88 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


to  interfere  with  and  actually  prevent  the  accom¬ 
plishment  of  results.  Just  as  satisfaction  with  our 
present  position  in  life  makes  it  practically  impos¬ 
sible  for  us  to  climb  higher,  so  the  element  of  self- 
complacence  puts  a  check  upon  all  future  en¬ 
deavor.  In  a  word,  all  the  tendencies  of  the  self- 
complacent  spirit  are  directly  opposed  to  those  of 
the  self-confident  spirit.  One  is  at  one  extreme; 
the  other  at  another. 

Self-complacence  is  nothing  more  than  the 
manifestation  of  the  spirit  of  self-satisfaction.  The 
self-complacent  man  is  thoroughly  satisfied  with 
himself.  If  the  position  he  occupies  is  not  just 
what  he  would  like  to  fill,  he  blames  other  people 
for  his  failure  to  succeed — never  himself.  The 
self-complacent  man  is  usually  afflicted  with  a  sort 
of  mental  strabismus  which  prevents  him  from  get¬ 
ting  a  true  view  of  the  proportion  of  things.  As 
the  result,  he  almost  invariably  possesses  a  dis¬ 
torted  idea  of  life — a  false  impression  of  the  rela- 


The  Law  of  Self-Reliance 


89 


tionship  that  exists  between  himself  and  other  in¬ 
dividuals  with  whom  he  has  business  associations. 

One  of  the  most  dangerous  tendencies  of  self- 
complacency  is  that  it  is  apt  to  engender  the  feel¬ 
ing  of  omniscience.  Thus,  for  example,  the  man 
who  has  succeeded  in  making  a  fortune  by  run¬ 
ning  a  dry  goods  store,  or  who  has  attained  fame 
as  a  plumber,  often  develops  the  feeling  that  he 
is  as  good  a  judge  upon  other  questions  as  he  is  in 
matters  relating  to  his  own  trade.  The  man  who 
is  an  expert  chemist,  or  draughtsman,  may  be  as 
ignorant  of  ordinary  commercial  affairs  as  the  child 
at  school ;  yet,  because  he  is  regarded  as  a  “  won¬ 
der  ”  in  his  own  line  of  business,  it  requires  but  a 
small  injection  of  the  element  of  self-complacence 
to  make  him  feel  that  he  is  capable  of  running  one 
of  the  big  commercial  houses,  or  industrial  plants, 
far  more  successfully  than  it  has  yet  been  done. 

As  the  natural  result,  the  self-complacent  in¬ 
dividual  is  frequently  led  into  dire  misfortunes  by 
the  false  ideas  of  his  own  astuteness.  The  fact 


90 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


that  he  knows  one  thing  thoroughly  does  not  imply 
that  he  should  know  all  things  equally  well.  Self- 
reliance  is  the  wise,  healthful  trust  in  ourselves  that 
gives  us  the  power  to  fight  life’s  battles  success¬ 
fully.  Self-complacence  is  the  force  of  inspira¬ 
tion  that  makes  the  fool  rush  in  where  angels 
would  fear  to  tread. 

Pride,  like  egotism,  may  easily  be  carried  to  ex¬ 
cess,  but,  like  egotism,  it,  too,  is  necessary  if  we  are 
to  lift  ourselves  out  of  the  commonplace  ruts  of  life 
in  which  so  many  has-beens  and  never-have-beens 
are  hopelessly  foundered.  It  is  pride  that  helps  a 
man  put  a  proper  valuation  upon  himself,  and,  as 
experience  has  taught  us,  the  individual  who  un¬ 
dervalues  his  own  ability  is  pretty  apt  to  be  gen¬ 
erously  kicked  and  cuffed  by  his  more  successful, 
though  less  modest,  fellows. 

As  we  well  know,  the  world  is  in  the  habit  of 
taking  a  great  many  things  for  granted.  It  goes 
much  by  appearances,  and,  while  we  may  deplore 
this  fact,  it  is  our  duty  to  take  advantage  of  it  as 


The  Law  of  Self-Reliance 


91 


long  as  such  conditions  continue  to  exist.  We  may 
not  go  so  far  as  to  assert  that  it  is  the  clothes  that 
make  the  man,  yet,  however  generous  and  charit¬ 
able  we  may  strive  to  be,  we  must  admit,  if  we 
are  honest,  that  carelessness,  or  slovenliness,  in  the 
matter  of  attire  invariably  leaves  a  most  unfavor¬ 
able  impression. 

In  one  respect,  at  least,  it  is  right  that  this  should 
be  so.  If  a  man  does  not  value  himself  at  a  suffi¬ 
ciently  high  figure  to  be  careful  about  the  condition 
of  his  apparel,  there  is  something  radically  wrong 
with  him.  We  may  not  be  able  to  purchase  the 
most  costly  raiment  offered  in  the  shops,  but  we 
can  at  least  be  neat.  A  patched  shoe  loses  more 
them  half  its  ill  effect  when  it  is  well  polished.  A 
frayed  cuff,  or  a  shiny  coat  sleeve,  may  be  over¬ 
looked  if  the  cuff  is  clean  and  the  coat  thoroughly 
brushed.  It  is  pride  that  insists  that  the  cuff  shall 
be  clean;  it  is  pride  that  brushes  our  coat  and 
shines  our  shoes  for  us. 


92 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


The  man  who  values  himself  highly  never  com¬ 
mits  mean  and  degrading  acts.  He  thinks  too 
much  of  his  own  honor  to  be  dishonorable  to 
others.  He  takes  too  much  pleasure  in  maintain¬ 
ing  a  good  reputation  to  go  out  of  his  way  to  do 
the  despicable  little  things  that  so  many  persons 
habitually  perform.  It  is  when  he  begins  to  value 
himself  lightly — to  undervalue  himself,  perhaps 
— that  he  commences  to  drink  too  much,  or  to 
commit  other  acts  that  make  his  acquaintances  look 
down  upon  him.  As  in  the  case  of  egotism,  pride 
that  is  carried  to  excess  may  become  a  decidedly 
disagreeable  quality,  and  a  serious  handicap  in 
the  contest  for  success ;  yet,  even  this  does  not  alter 
the  fact  that  a  certain  amount  of  pride  is  abso¬ 
lutely  necessary  if  we  are  to  maintain  a  command¬ 
ing  place  in  the  world. 

To  most  men  the  business  world  offers,  in  the 
beginning,  merely  a  humble  position.  Some  few 
have  wealth  and  place  thrust  upon  them  through 
the  accident  of  birth,  but,  though  they  may  step 


The  Law  of  Self-Reliance 


93 


into  the  thick  of  the  fight  well  toward  the  top  of 
the  ladder,  they  do  not  always  stay  there.  To 
secure  genuine  and  lasting  success,  the  best  start¬ 
ing  place  is  at  the  bottom.  Then,  the  ability  to 
ascend  becomes  largely  a  matter  of  individual 
effort.  If  the  man  is  content  with  small  things 
like  a  mere  living,  he  can  stay  where  he  is  and  let 
the  procession  go  by,  but  if  he  has  a  reasonable 
amount  of  pride  and  egotism,  he  is  not  likely  to 
remain  at  the  bottom  very  long.  Few  of  us  like 
to  feel  that  others  are  enjoying  the  cream  and 
caviare  of  life  while  we  have  nothing  better  than 
onion  soup  for  our  portion,  especially  when  we, 
too,  may  have  the  best  of  everything — if  we  are 
willing  to  work  in  the  right  way. 


I 


CHAPTER  VII. 

The  Law  of  Courage. 

Take  all  the  mistakes  that  we  are  likely  to 
make  in  life;  bunch  them  together,  and  multiply 
their  combined  force  by  three ;  the  evil  effect  pro¬ 
duced  would  still  fall  short  of  that  which  is  ex¬ 
erted  by  a  discouraged  state  of  mind.  Discour¬ 
agement  is  another  word  for  “  letting  go.”  To 
“  let  go  ”  means  to  stop  trying.  When  we  become 
discouraged,  therefore,  we  stop  trying — that  is  all ! 
But,  could  anything  be  worse? 

Let  us  imagine  that  we  are  in  control  of  a  great 
electricity-producing  machine;  that  the  machine  is 
running  at  full  speed,  and  that  we  stand  with  a 
hand  on  the  switchboard  by  which  this  stupendous 
motive  force  is  to  be  sent  in  various  directions. 
By  throwing  every  switch  open  this  power  would 
be  distributed  evenly  through  the  entire  system  of 
conductors.  By  closing  a  switch  here  and  there 

95 


96 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


we  should  be  able  to  stop  the  power  from  going  to 
certain  portions  of  the  building.  With  every  one 
of  the  switches  closed,  the  power  would  be  shut 
off  completely.  The  wires  would  be  there — the 
conductors — but  the  machinery  at  the  other  end 
would  be  silent,  because  the  switches  at  the 
board  remained  closed. 

Our  bodies  represent  a  sort  of  machine  for  the 
production  of  a  kind  of  dynamic  force,  which,  for 
the  sake  of  the  illustration,  we  may  designate  as 
electricity.  From  head  to  foot  this  body  is  wired 
with  a  complete  system  of  conducting  arteries  and 
nerves,  running  to  and  from  the  brain,  for,  in  this 
piece  of  human  mechanism,  it  is  the  brain  that  per¬ 
forms  the  services  of  a  switchboard.  When  we 
determine  to  carry  out  a  specific  action,  the  order, 
received  at  the  switchboard,  is  carried  out  through 
the  opening  of  the  proper  switch,  the  success  or 
failure  of  the  effort  depending  entirely  upon  the 
amount  of  energy  sent  upon  the  performance  of 
this  particular  duty. 


The  Law  of  Courage 


97 


When  we  are  filled  with  hope  and  courage, 
when  we  are  eager  to  perform  a  specific  act,  and 
are  quite  certain  that  we  can  do  it  well,  the  right 
switch  is  thrown  wide  open  and  the  force  we  re¬ 
quire  is  sent  pulsing  through  the  conductors.  Let 
the  element  of  discouragement  enter,  however,  and 
the  effect  is  different.  Instead  of  being  confident 
as  to  the  result,  the  intelligence  at  the  switchboard 
hesitates.  The  command  to  turn  on  the  switch 
comes  in  such  a  faltering,  uncertain  tone  that  there 
is  a  question  about  obeying,  it.  At  one  moment 
the  hand  rises  towards  the  switchboard.  Then  a 
thought  intrudes.  “  Oh,  what’s  the  use!  ”  it  pro¬ 
tests.  “  Nothing  will  come  of  it  anyway!  ”  So 
the  hand  falls  again,  and  the  switch  remains 
closed. 

In  other  words,  the  electricity  is  there,  but  it 
might  just  as  well  not  be  there  for  all  the  good  it 
does.  Instead  of  flashing  along  the  wires,  carry¬ 
ing  the  call  to  action  to  every  section  of  this  in¬ 
tricate  system,  the  force  fails  to  respond,  and  there 


98 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


is  inertia.  In  this  life  it  is  hope  and  courage  that 
give  the  positive  motive  force  to  all  our  actions;  it 
is  fear  and  discouragement  that  stultify  our  best 
intentions. 

Of  course,  the  time  sometimes  comes  to  every 
one  when,  temporarily  at  least,  he  is  compelled 
to  admit  defeat.  Though  our  proposition  may 
seem  thoroughly  practicable  and  our  plans  so  well 
arranged  that  we  know  exactly  what  we  want  to 
do  and  how  we  should  go  to  work  to  accomplish 
the  desired  results,  the  realization  of  the  end  we 
long  to  attain  seems  impossible.  It  is  true  that  it 
may  be  our  own  fault,  or  it  may  be  the  fault  of 
some  other  person.  Whatever  the  difficulty,  how¬ 
ever — wherever  the  trouble  may  lie — the  fact  is 
apparent ;  temporary  defeat  stares  us  in  the  face. 

Such  setbacks  are  anything  but  agreeable  to 
contemplate.  It  is  humiliating  to  lose  at  any  game 
that  we  play.  Most  of  us  discovered  this  fact 
years  ago.  Even  as  small  boys,  when  the  issue 
was  nothing  greater  than  a  baseball  game  on  the 


The  Law  of  Courage 


99 


corner  lot,  the  desire  to  win  was  so  strong  within 
us  that  we  scarcely  dared  to  meet  the  inquiring 
faces  of  our  friends  when  defeat  had  occurred  as 
the  result  of  our  efforts. 

At  the  same  time,  if  we  were  made  of  the  right 
kind  of  material,  we  learned  a  lesson  in  those  days 
that  we  have  never  forgotten,  and  that  has  never 
ceased  to  exert  an  influence  for  courage  in  our 
lives.  We  learned  that  today’s  defeat  is  not  nec¬ 
essarily  an  eternal  disgrace.  We  learned  that 
there  was  another  day  coming  and  that  the  losses 
and  humiliations  of  today  might  be  wiped  out  by 
the  victory  of  tomorrow. 

As  long  as  a  man  can  maintain  this  attitude  to¬ 
wards  the  affairs  of  life  there  is  little  danger  that 
he  will  meet  with  fatal  disaster  on  the  road  to  suc¬ 
cess.  As  long  as  he  can  preserve  the  sentiment  of 
cheerfulness  and  self-confidence  the  troubles  that 
overtake  him  will  prove  little  more  than  temporary 
obstacles.  It  is  only  when  the  element  of  discour- 


100 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


l 

agement  commences  to  intrude  that  the  defeat 
threatens  to  become  a  permanent  affair. 

It  is  courage  that  enables  us  to  win  the  battles 
of  the  business  world — the  courage  that  all  strong 
men  possess.  It  is  discouragement  that  makes  suc¬ 
cess  impossible.  If  you  are  afraid  of  any  partic¬ 
ular  thing,  such  a  fear  begins  to  minimize  the  effect 
of  your  effort  the  moment  it  takes  possession  of  the 
mind.  To  begin  an  undertaking  with  fear  of  fail¬ 
ure  is  a  reasonable  assurance  that  the  failure  will 
follow.  The  man  who  is  always  afraid  of  being 
cheated — who  is  forever  looking  for  dishonesty  in 
others — usually  meets  the  very  experience  he  has 
anticipated.  It  is  almost  as  though  such  opera¬ 
tions  were  in  accord  with  a  law  of  cause  and  effect 
— as  though  there  was  an  actual  law  like  gravita¬ 
tion  at  work  in  the  matter,  making  like  attract  like 
in  these  things  just  as  it  does  in  many  other  phases 
of  life. 

There  are  men  in  the  bread-line,  or  sleeping  on 
the  park  benches,  who  are  fitted  to  occupy  places 


The  Law  of  Courage 


101 


of  some  responsibility  in  the  world,  and  who  owe 
their  failure  to  the  fact  that  they  have  given  way 
to  discouraging  conditions.  Once,  in  every  prob¬ 
ability,  many  of  these  men  faced  the  world  with 
courage  and  self-confidence.  They  believed  in 
themselves.  They  believed  in  their  ability  to  win 
the  battles  of  life.  When  the  chance  came  to  them 
to  make  good — the  opportunity  for  which  they 
had  been  waiting  so  anxiously — they  may  have 
marched  bravely  to  the  attack.  Unfortunately, 
however,  something  occurred  that  turned  the  tide 
of  events  against  them.  Through  some  fault  of 
their  own,  or  because  of  a  combination  of  circum¬ 
stances  over  which  they  were  able  to  exercise  no 
control,  their  first  battle  was  lost. 

Common  sense  would  naturally  suggest  that 
such  a  defeat  be  treated  as  a  temporary  mishap, 
not  as  a  permanent  disaster,  and  when  this  atti¬ 
tude  is  assumed  there  is  little  danger  to  be  feared. 
It  is  when  the  verdict  is  accepted  as  final  that  the 
dangerous  element  enters,  and  the  discouragement 


102 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


becomes  fatal.  The  story  of  the  career  of  the 
great  American,  George  Washington,  teaches  us 
that  no  straits  are  so  desperate  as  to  afford  an  ex¬ 
cuse  for  the  exhibition  of  personal  cowardice. 
Few  men  have  been  so  sorely  tested  as  he  was  dur¬ 
ing  the  winter  of  1777-8,  yet  neither  the  ruin  that 
stared  him  in  the  face  nor  the  shadow  of  the  gal¬ 
lows  that  seemed  so  certainly  to  await  him,  awoke 
the  slightest  taint  of  cowardice  in  his  soul.  It  is 
such  incidents  in  the  lives  of  others — and  the  pages 
of  history  are  filled  with  them — that  emphasize 
the  folly  of  giving  up.  They  prove  that  luck  is 
never  so  bad  as  to  be  hopeless  and  when  we  have 
mastered  this  truth — and  not  until  then — are  we 
fit  to  go  out  to  do  battle  with  the  world. 

The  solution  of  the  problem  of  success  depends 
almost  entirely  upon  the  make-up  of  the  individual 
whose  future  is  in  the  balance.  If  a  man  has  no 
particular  talent  for  anything,  if  he  has  nothing 
more  than  ordinary  courage,  ordinary  initiative, 
and  ordinary  persistence,  he  will  never  lift  himself 


The  Law  of  Courage 


103 


above  the  rank  of  ordinary  men.  If  he  chooses  a 
profession,  he  will  play  the  part  of  an  ordinary 
practitioner.  In  business  his  career  will  ever  be  a 
struggle  to  make  ends  meet.  Fearing  failure,  he 
will  attract  failure;  anticipating  misfortunes,  he 
will  meet  them  more  than  half  way. 

There  are  people  who  are  so  lacking  in  courage 
that  $  1 5  a  week  is  about  as  much  as  they  dare  to 
earn.  They  may  not  realize  that  they  are  labor¬ 
ing  under  such  a  handicap.  They  may  even  com¬ 
plain  of  the  ill  fortune  that  pursues  them,  keeping 
them  down  when  they  are  so  eager  to  rise.  Let  a 
new  opportunity  open  the  door  to  them,  however, 
and,  figuratively  at  least,  they  begin  to  tremble. 
Instantly  the  fear-element  takes  possession  of  them 
and  they  commence  to  wonder  what  will  happen  if 
they  should  once  more  fail  to  succeed. 

A  young  man  who  faces  life  with  this  frame  of 
mind  might  just  as  well  take  the  first  position  that 
presents  itself  and  then  quietly  proceed  to  grow 
old  in  it.  Unless  he  can  overcome  this  innate  fear 


104 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


of  the  future  he  will  have  no  future  worth  boast¬ 
ing  about. 

Take  the  case  of  Belvedere  Brooks,  the  gen¬ 
eral  manager  of  the  Western  Union  Telegraph 
Company,  as  an  illustration.  Suppose  he  had 
been  made  of  this  sort  of  material.  He  began  at 
the  very  bottom,  as  a  messenger  boy  in  a  country 
telegraph  station.  Being  unwilling  to  remain  a 
messenger  boy  any  longer  than  was  absolutely 
necessary,  he  mastered  the  art  of  sending  messages. 
This  was  a  natural  thing  for  an  ambitious  boy  to 
do,  but  suppose  that  Mr.  Brooks  had  stopped 
there.  Suppose  he  had  said,  “  Why,  I  know  good 
telegraph  operators  who  are  still  working  for  $  1 5 
a  week.  I  don’t  think  such  a  future  is  worth  fight¬ 
ing  for.  I  guess  I’d  better  quit  telegraphy  and 
take  up  plumbing  as  a  means  of  livelihood.” 

If  he  had  argued  in  this  way,  he  might  have  be¬ 
come  a  good  plumber  but  he  would  never  have  be¬ 
come  the  general  manager  of  this  great  telegraph 
company.  And,  this  argument,  had  he  resorted 


The  Law  of  Courage 


105 


to  it,  might  have  seemed  a  logical  one.  There 
were,  and  still  are,  men  of  considerable  ability 
who  find  it  hard  to  make  a  living  as  telegraphers. 
If  you  were  to  become  acquainted  with  them, 
however,  you  could  probably  put  your  finger  on 
the  source  of  their  failure.  In  some  cases  it  is  bad 
habits ;  in  others  it  is  lack  of  initiative ;  in  many  in¬ 
stances,  it  is  lack  of  courage,  but  invariably,  the 
fault  lies  within  the  man  himself.  It  is  one  of  the 
absolutely  inviolable  laws  of  life  that  the  man  who 
is  gauged  at  $15-a-week  capacity  is  never  able  to 
rise  far  above  it — not  because  he  couldn’t  rise  if 
he  tried,  but  simply  for  the  reason  that  he  lacks 
the  attributes  that  make  it  easy  for  him  to  try 
in  the  right  way. 

If  the  doctrines  of  the  fatalists  were  true,  or  if 
Dame  Chance  alone  presided  over  the  destinies  of 
men,  we  might  assume  that  our  own  mental  atti¬ 
tude  could  make  little  difference  as  to  the  net  re¬ 
sults  of  our  actions.  If  things  “  just  happened  ” 
and  good  and  bad  fortune  were  governed  wholly 


106 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


by  such  a  vague  statute  as  the  law  of  averages, 
there  might  be  some  excuse  for  discouragement, 
but  as  things  are  now  ordained,  success  and  fail¬ 
ure  depend  upon  entirely  different  principles.  The 
fortune  that  we  now  call  “  luck  ”  is  almost  entirely 
a  matter  of  hard  and  conscientious  work,  honest 
and  thorough  preparation  for  that  work,  and  punc¬ 
tuality  in  turning  it  out. 

While  the  man  who  is  ignorant  of  mechanical 
methods  might  find  it  impossible  to  construct  a 
practicable  piece  of  machinery,  or  one  who  was 
ignorant  of  the  laws  of  literary  construction  might 
fail  in  his  effort  to  turn  out  a  readable  novel  or  a 
presentable  play,  persistent  and  conscientious  work 
will  open  any  field  of  activity  to  almost  any  man. 
Few  are  more  ignorant  than  Elihu  Burritt  was  in 
his  youth.  The  Rev.  Robert  Collyer  could 
scarcely  write  his  name  when  a  young  man.  Y et, 
when  the  desire  for  knowledge  took  possession  of 
these  men,  their  ignorance  did  not  prove  an  insur¬ 
mountable  barrier  to  their  ambition.  It  was  a  fal- 


The  Law  of  Courage 


107 


tering  kind  of  progress  at  first,  for  even  ambition 
sometimes  finds  it  hard  to  fly,  but,  in  the  end,  it  in¬ 
variably  masters  the  art.  Elihu  Burritt  became 
known  as  the  “  learned  blacksmith.”  Robert 
Collyer  still  preaches  in  one  of  New  York’s  great 
churches.  Such  stories  of  success  snatched  out  of 
the  lap  of  adversity  make  us  realize  how  foolish  it 
is  to  regard  any  kind  of  achievement  as  impossible, 
especially  in  view  of  the  fact  that  even  courage 
itself  is  a  quality  that  can  be  cultivated. 

To  acquire  the  kind  of  courage  that  is  so  neces¬ 
sary  to  success,  the  first  requirement  is  to  learn  to 
act  deliberately.  The  very  fact  that  we  hurry 
indicates  that  we  are  afraid  of  something — afraid 
that  we  shall  be  too  late,  or  that  others  will  obtain 
more  than  their  share.  In  order  that  we  may 
hurry,  we  neglect  things  that  we  ought  to  do,  or 
do  things  that  we  would  not  dream  of  doing  if  we 
had  but  taken  time  to  think  before  we  acted  so 
hastily. 


108 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


To  overcome  this  “  hurry  habit  ”  one  must  cul¬ 
tivate  the  habit  of  deliberation  by  learning  to  do 
one  thing  at  a  time.  Thus,  when  you  are  reading, 
you  must  see  that  your  mind  is  so  firmly  fixed  upon 
your  book  that  it  is  impossible  for  you  to  think  of 
anything  else.  Don’t  read  with  part  of  your  mind 
and  think  about  the  work  you  are  to  do  tomorrow 
with  the  other  part  of  your  mind.  Put  your  whole 
mind  upon  the  act  in  which  you  are  engaged  and 
banish  every  other  thought.  If  the  mind  is  per¬ 
mitted  to  acquire  the  habit  of  “  wool  gathering  ” 
— wandering  away  into  all  sorts  of  remote  pas¬ 
tures — it  is  absurd  to  expect  that  it  will  be  with 
us  at  the  moment  when  we  most  need  it,  and,  as 
one  cannot  be  courageous  without  presence  of 
mind,  the  wisdom  of  cultivating  this  mental  qual¬ 
ity  is  obvious. 

To  illustrate  the  importance  of  this  mental  atti¬ 
tude  we  might  recall  the  story  that  Miss  Churchill 
tells  of  the  Revolutionary  officer  who  saved  him- 


The  Law  of  Courage 


109 


self  from  arrest  and  possible  execution  as  a  spy  by 
courage  and  presence  of  mind.  Riding  through 
the  country  he  suddenly  found  himself  confronted 
by  a  regiment  of  British  soldiers.  Approaching 
them  at  good  speed,  he  demanded,  in  tones  of  au¬ 
thority:  “What  troops  are  these?”  “The 

Royal  Scots,”  was  the  reply.  “  Royal  Scots  re¬ 
main  as  you  are!  ”  he  commanded,  and  the  sol¬ 
diers  unsuspiciously  sat  there  while  he  turned  and 
rode  toward  the  American  lines. 

This  incident  not  only  indicates  the  value  of 
perfect  co-operation  between  courage  and  presence 
of  mind,  but  it  also  shows  that  one  may  act  de¬ 
liberately  without  acting  slowly.  Indeed,  such  de¬ 
liberation  as  one  would  acquire  by  these  methods 
of  training  would  be  certain  to  lead  to  more  rap¬ 
idity  in  both  thought  and  action,  for  deliberation 
has  none  of  the  elements  of  uncertainty  about  it. 
It  is  the  process  by  which  the  mind,  through  per¬ 
fect  concentration,  most  speedily  arrives  at  the 
solution  of  its  problems. 


B°S™N  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 


no 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


And,  don’t  forget  that  the  attitude  maintained 
by  the  physical  body  also  has  a  positive  effect  for 
good  or  evil  upon  the  mind.  Years  before  Pro¬ 
fessor  William  James  first  published  the  result  of 
his  experiments,  Maudsley  and  Halleck  advanced 
very  much  the  same  theory,  stating  that  the  specific 
muscular  action  that  accompanies  an  emotion  is 
not  only  an  expression  of  the  thought  but  a  vital 
part  of  it.  This  is  simply  another  way  of  saying 
that  we  have  the  power  within  us  to  cultivate  any 
mental  attribute  that  we  may  select — that  we  can 
make  ourselves  happy  or  unhappy,  courageous  or 
cowardly  just  as  we  may  elect.  It  is  an  interest¬ 
ing  idea,  and  if  you  are  one  of  those  doubting 
Thomases  who  can  never  see  “  anything  in  it,” 
follow  the  advice  of  Dr.  Woods  Hutchinson,  a 
reputable  member  of  the  regular  medical  profes¬ 
sion,  and  test  this  theory  yourself. 

“To  what  extent  muscular  contraction  condi¬ 
tions  emotions,”  he  says,  “  may  be  tested  easily  by 
a  quaint  and  simple  little  experiment  upon  a  group 


The  Law  of  Courage 


111 


of  the  smallest  voluntary  muscles  of  the  body — 
those  that  move  the  eyeballs.  Choose  some  time 
when  you  are  sitting  quietly  in  your  room,  free 
from  all  disturbing  influences.  Then  stand  up 
and,  assuming  an  easy  position,  cast  your  eyes  up¬ 
ward,  and  keep  them  in  that  pose  for  thirty  sec¬ 
onds.  Instantly  and  involuntarily  you  will  be  con¬ 
scious  of  a  tendency  toward  reverential,  devo¬ 
tional,  contemplative  ideas  and  thoughts.  Then 
turn  the  eyes  sideways,  glancing  towards  the  right 
or  the  left,  through  half-closed  lids.  Within 
thirty  seconds  images  of  suspicion,  of  uneasiness, 
or  of  dislike  will  rise  unbidden  to  the  mind.  Turn 
your  eyes  to  one  side  and  slightly  downward  and 
suggestions  of  jealousy  or  coquetry  will  be  apt  to 
spring  unbidden  to  the  thoughts.  Direct  your 
gaze  towards  the  floor  and  you  will  likely  go  off 
into  a  fit  of  reverie  or  abstraction.” 

If  it  is  true  that  the  physical  position  is  to  so 
great  a  degree  reflected  in  the  mind,  we  should 
not  neglect  to  make  our  attitude  toward  life  con- 


112 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


tribute  to  the  success  to  which  we  have  set  our  as¬ 
pirations.  If  the  assumption  of  courage  is  to  help 
us  win  our  battle  against  cowardice,  that  is  the 
attitude  which  we  should  assume,  so  that — with 
head  erect,  shoulders  back,  and  a  firm,  decisive 
gait — we  may  the  more  surely  push  on  to  victory. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

The  Law  of  Economy. 

It  is  not  an  easy  thing  to  practice  economy  in 
these  days,  for  there  probably  never  was  a  time 
when  there  were  more,  or  greater,  enticements  de¬ 
signed  expressly  to  separate  a  man  from  his  money. 
Undoubtedly  there  have  always  been  extravagant 
people — some  of  the  world’s  worst  spendthrifts 
lived  and  rioted  many  centuries  ago — but  the  idea 
which  we  now  express  by  the  term  “  extrava¬ 
gance  ”  could  have  had  no  general  application  up 
to  a  very  recent  period.  When  money  was  so 
difficult  to  secure  that  the  ordinary  individual  felt 
the  need  of  looking  twice  at  a  penny  before  spend¬ 
ing  it,  the  lessons  of  economy  were  more  easily 
learned  and  more  widely  heeded.  Since  money 
commenced  to  be  more  plentiful,  however,  ways 
innumerable  have  been  devised  for  helping  the 

113 


114 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


man  with  a  salary,  or  the  wage  earner,  to  get 
rid  of  his  surplus  cash. 

If  conditions  have  changed  in  this  respect,  if 
the  markets  are  filled  with  a  new  and  more  costly 
class  of  goods  to  tempt  us  to  wastefulness,  the 
conditions  of  life  are  still  as  hard  as  ever  they 
were,  and  obedience  to  the  law  of  economy  is  just 
as  necessary.  There  may  be  times  in  life  when  it 
is  difficult  to  believe  that  this  is  true.  In  the  midst 
of  the  affluence  that  success  so  often  brings 
there  is  little  to  make  us  remember  that  this  pros¬ 
perity  may  not  improbably  wane.  There  is  an 
inviolable  law  of  nature  that  stipulates  that  there 
shall  be  no  flood  tide  that  is  not  followed  by  an 
ebb.  Nature  has  her  time  of  harvest  and  there  is  a 
time  when  nothing  can  be  gathered.  There  is  a 
day  of  sunshine  and  a  day  of  rain. 

Every  student  of  financial  history  knows  that 
the  same  phenomena  occur  in  the  life  of  nations, 
and,  with  our  own  experiences,  of  too  recent  date 
to  be  easily  forgotten,  we  should  realize  how  little 


The  Law  of  Economy 


115 


< 


a  thing  it  takes  to  turn  the  financial  tide.  During 
the  last  panic — those  dark,  dreary  days  of  depres¬ 
sion  when  great  institutions  took  refuge  in  bank¬ 
ruptcy,  and  men  of  millions  were  impoverished — 
we  should  have  learned  the  lesson  that  preparation 
for  the  winter  of  adversity  is  one  of  the  first  duties 
of  man. 

So  far  as  the  rainy  days  are  concerned,  they 
come  to  individuals  just  as  they  come  to  nations, 
and  usually,  in  both  cases,  they  are  the  result  of 
very  slight  causes.  A  slip  on  the  ice — a  draught 
of  cold  air — a  tiny  germ  taken  into  the  system  at 
the  wrong  moment — or  any  one  of  a  hundred  mis¬ 
haps  may  prove  sufficient  to  put  the  quietus  upon 
the  earning  capacity  of  the  most  stalwart  in¬ 
dividual. 

It  is  not  only  because  of  the  almost  inevitable 
appearance  of  rainy  days  that  economy  is  one  of 
the  most  important  factors  in  the  attainment  of 
success,  for,  while  a  bank  balance  is  advantageous 
in  helping  to  keep  the  wolf  from  the  door,  it  is 


\ 


116 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


just  as  useful  in  enabling  us  to  meet  and  take  ad¬ 
vantage  of  the  opportunities  that  may  prove  to  be 
the  open  door  to  greater  attainments.  The  litera¬ 
ture  of  biography  is  filled  with  the  stories  of  men 
who  have  started  with  a  shoe-string  and  have 
afterward  achieved  success,  but,  if  you  were  to 
read  these  narratives  closely,  you  would  see  that 
the  “  success  ”  did  not  come  until  after  they  had 
passed  through  a  period  of  carefully  fostered 
economy.  It  may  be  possible  to  accomplish  great 
results  in  the  commercial  world  with  a  very  small 
amount  of  money,  yet  every  day  men  fail  in  busi¬ 
ness,  or  lose  great  opportunities,  simply  for  lack 
of  the  small  capital  that  they  might  have  had  if 
they  had  but  exercised  even  ordinary  foresight  in 
guarding  against  wastefulness. 

While  most  men  will  admit  the  value  of 
economy,  not  all  by  any  means  understand  the 
full  significance  of  the  term.  To  the  majority  the 
word  is  merely  a  synonym  for  the  savings  we  make 
in  our  domestic  and  business  affairs — the  pennies 


The  Law  of  Economy 


117 


that  we  lay  by  with  the  hope  that  they  may  live 
up  to  the  promise  of  the  ancient  maxim  and  subse¬ 
quently  develop  into  dollars. 

Of  course,  this  is  an  important  phase  of 
economy,  but  it  is  only  one  of  its  phases.  To 
apply  the  term  properly,  it  must  exert  a  more  inti¬ 
mate  effect  upon  our  lives — it  must  play  a  more 
vital  part  in  our  affairs.  If  all  the  savings  we 
make  are  represented  by  pennies,  or  even  by  dol¬ 
lars,  our  part  has  been  only  half  played.  It  is 
wise  to  practice  financial  economies,  but  it  is  not 
wise  to  stop  there.  Besides  saving  our  money 
there  are  many  possessions  in  which  we  should 
economize — our  health,  our  physical  strength, 
and,  among  other  things,  our  mental  and  nervous 
energy. 

Many  individuals  who  pride  themselves  upon 
their  ability  to  be  economical  are  actually  spend¬ 
thrifts  when  it  comes  to  the  matter  of  mental  and 
physical  strength.  They  regard  their  ability  to 
work  hard  and  persistently  as  a  virtue,  and  they 


118 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


continue  to  work  as  though  such  accomplishments 
represented  the  most  noble  achievement  to  which 
it  were  possible  for  man  to  attain.  They  do  not  re¬ 
alize  that  even  a  virtue  may  be  carried  to  excess — 
that  economy  may  develop  into  miserliness,  and 
that  industry  assumes  the  odor  of  criminality  when 
it  is  forced  to  such  extremes  that  the  health  is  im¬ 
paired. 

Industry  is  commendable,  but  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  working  too  hard,  and  the  most  in¬ 
dustrious  men  too  frequently  become  spendthrifts 
of  energy.  They  do  not  ask  the  question :  “Can 
I  afford  to  do  this?  Can  I  afford  to  take  this 
task  home  and  extend  my  working  hours  far  into 
the  night?  Can  I  afford  to  forego  the  pleasure 
and  relaxation  that  a  visit  to  the  theatre  would 
give  me?  Can  I  afford  to  relinquish  my  chance 
for  a  vacation?  Can  I  afford  to  do  two  men’s 
work,  even  at  an  increase  in  salary?  ’’ 

We  are  very  apt  to  debate  these  questions  ex¬ 
clusively  from  the  financial  point  of  view,  when. 


The  Law  of  Economy 


119 


as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  monetary  argument 
should  not  always  have  the  greatest  weight. 
There  is  no  profit  in  doing  two  men’s  work,  even 
at  two  men’s  pay,  if  all  the  money  earned  is  to  be 
expended  in  paying  for  the  services  of  doctors 
and  nurses.  There  is  no  profit  in  working  day 
and  night  to  save  clerk  hire,  only  to  end  your 
days  as  a  chronic  invalid,  or  in  a  sanitarium. 
Death  is  a  big  price  to  pay  for  the  privilege  of 
working  overtime. 

It  may  reduce  your  profits  considerably  to  em¬ 
ploy  the  one  or  two  additional  helpers  that  you 
need,  but  have  you  ever  stopped  to  consider  how 
much  more  time  you  would  have  for  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  your  business  if  you  were  relieved  of  the 
mass  of  details  that  are  now  making  you  a  nervous 
wreck?  It  may  cost  you  a  good  many  dollars, 
that  vacation  trip  that  you  have  planned,  but — 
never  fear! — the  dollars  will  be  well  spent.  You 
will  return  fit  for  work — in  good  condition  to  re¬ 
cover  far  more  than  the  amount  you  can  possibly 


120 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


spend.  If,  instead  of  taking  this  trip,  you  try  to 
spend  the  vacation  in  your  own  home,  the  result 
will  not  be  the  same.  It  isn’t  merely  the  fact  that 
a  man  is  absent  from  his  desk  that  counts.  It  is 
the  change  of  scene,  the  different  atmosphere,  the 
opportunity  to  see  new  faces,  the  ability  to  enlarge 
his  view  of  things. 

Undoubtedly  recreations,  like  every  other 
virtue,  can  be  overdone,  but  that  is  not  the  sort 
of  recreation  about  which  we  are  talking.  The 
main  point  to  be  remembered  is  that  all  work  and 
no  play  will  be  certain  to  make  us  dull,  and  that, 
as  success  is  largely  dependent  upon  quickness  of 
thought  and  facility  of  comprehension,  lack  of 
recreation  is  not  unlikely  to  pave  the  way  for 
failure,  even  if,  as  frequently  happens,  it  does  not 
make  us  ill,  or  dig  a  grave  for  us. 

Waste  of  energy  is  quite  as  serious  a  handicap 
in  the  struggle  for  success  as  waste  of  money,  and 
if  there  were  but  some  way  by  which  we  might 
ascertain  the  amount  of  energy  that  is  wasted  by 


The  Law  of  Economy 


121 


each  one  of  us  every  day  of  our  lives  we  would 
unquestionably  find  the  true  explanation  for  our 
failures.  Indeed,  if  it  were  a  problem  that  could 
be  set  down  numerically,  we  should  probably  find 
that  the  energy  expended  unnecessarily  would  be 
quite  equal  to  the  amount  required  to  accomplish 
every  task  that  we  are  ordinarily  called  upon  to 
perform.  In  other  words,  in  doing  the  things  that 
we  have  to  do  we  use  up  fully  twice  the  amount 
of  vital  force  that  we  are  actually  required  to  ex¬ 
pend. 

There  are  many  men  who  do  not  know  what  it 
is  to  feel  free  from  the  cares  of  business.  Instead 
of  leaving  their  commercial  problems  at  the  office, 
they  take  them  home,  where  they  allow  them  to 
spoil  their  appetite  for  dinner  and  rob  sleep  of  its 
joys,  either  through  forced  wakefulness  or  dreams 
in  which  the  business  troubles  of  the  day  work 
themselves  into  a  still  more  intricate  tangle.  As 
the  result,  they  rise  in  the  morning  still  weary  with 
the  cares  that  should  have  been  forgotten  many 
hours  before. 


122 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


All  this  is  a  woeful  waste  of  energy,  for  in  the 
time  that  we  spend  thinking  about  these  tasks,  and, 
perhaps,  dreading  to  undertake  them,  we  waste 
fully  as  much  of  this  vital  force  as  would  be  re¬ 
quired  for  the  actual  performance  of  the  duty. 
To  use  a  homely  illustration,  the  man  who  lies  in 
bed  in  the  morning  dreading  to  get  up,  gets  up, 
not  once  but  several  times.  In  thinking  about  ris¬ 
ing,  and  in  dreading  to  make  the  effort,  he  dissi¬ 
pates  more  force  than  would  enable  him  to  take 
the  step  he  so  dislikes  to  contemplate. 

The  man  who  chases  the  street  car,  and  who, 
perhaps,  stands  on  the  corner  and  says  unkind  things 
about  the  company  because  he  has  failed  to  catch 
it,  wastes  infinitely  more  energy  than  he  would  re¬ 
quire  to  walk  to  the  proper  place  at  his  ordinary 
gait  and  quietly  wait  for  the  next  car.  The  very 
act  of  losing  the  temper  is  one  of  the  most  wasteful 
expenditures  of  energy  that  it  is  possible  to  con¬ 
ceive.  In  fact,  to  conserve  the  energy  which  is 
so  necessary  to  the  successful  accomplishment  of 


The  Law  of  Economy 


123 


any  task,  or  the  attainment  of  any  purpose,  the 
mind  must  be  kept  in  as  calm  a  state  as  possible. 
The  man  who  rushes  about  as  if  the  safety  of  the 
universe  depended  upon  his  individual  effort — who 
gets  excited  and  flurried  if  everyone  does  not  heed 
his  beck  and  call — does  not  begin  to  accomplish 
the  results  that  are  attained  by  the  individual  who 
calmly,  quietly  and  intelligently  works  on  to  the 
logical  conclusion  of  his  labors.  The  former  may 
gain  the  reputation  of  being  more  energetic  than 
the  latter,  but,  when  it  comes  to  the  question  of 
relative  results — and,  of  course,  it  is  results  that 
count  in  the  commercial  world — it  will  be  found 
that  it  is  the  steady,  unostentatious  workman  who 
has  done  the  greatest  things. 

Another  method  by  which  many  expend  their 
vital  energy  uselessly  is  by  trying  to  do  two  or 
three  different  things  at  once,  or  by  thinking  about 
one  thing  when  trying  to  perform  another.  It  is 
surprising  how  many  persons  are  unable  to  do  one 
thing,  and  only  that  one  thing  at  a  time.  By  force 


124 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


of  habit  we  have  accustomed  ourselves  to  think 
about  one  subject  when  attending  to  another — 
working  at  one  problem  while  planning  how  we 
shall  undertake  the  next — just  as  we  read  a  book 
or  newspaper  while  our  mind  is  wandering  in  an 
entirely  different  direction.  When  reading  in  this 
manner,  we  see  the  words  but  they  convey  little 
meaning  to  our  inattentive  mind. 

This  does  not  imply  that  we  should  never  spend 
time  making  preparations  for  the  work  that  must 
be  done  in  the  future.  If  thought  is  properly  con¬ 
centrated  upon  these  subjects,  the  effect  is  the 
same  as  that  of  actual  work.  It  is  the  wandering 
mind,  and  the  mind  that  anticipates  troubles  un¬ 
necessarily,  which  wastes  the  forces  that  we  can 
so  ill  afford  to  lose. 

All  worry  is  this  kind  of  wasted  effort,  taking 
our  mental  strength  from  more  useful  things  and 
devoting  it  to  something  from  which  we  cannot 
possibly  derive  the  slightest  benefit.  What  would 
you  think  of  a  man  who  continued  to  work,  day 


The  Law  of  Economy 


125 


after  day,  when  he  knew  that  the  effort  he  was 
making  would  never  and  could  never  be  re¬ 
warded?  Work,  to  meet  its  highest  possibilities, 
must  have  some  sort  of  a  pay  envelope  in  sight.  It 
may  not  mean  definite  remuneration  in  so  many 
dollars  and  cents,  but  it  must  tend  toward  a  re¬ 
ward  of  some  kind.  It  must  bring  advantages  to 
the  individual  who  is  doing  the  work,  or  to  those 
for  whom  the  work  is  being  done.  We  may  work 
for  our  own  intellectual  advancement  without  hope 
of  financial  reward;  we  may  work  for  the  benefit 
of  humanity,  but  there  must  be  a  return  somewhere 
— otherwise  the  work  is  wasted  effort. 

Instead  of  doing  ourselves  any  good  by  worry¬ 
ing,  such  a  mental  condition  invariably  operates 
against  us.  Instead  of  benefiting  others,  it  tends 
directly  to  incapacitate  us  for  being  of  any  service 
to  our  fellow  men.  Instead  of  sharpening  our  wits 
and  suggesting  safe  avenues  of  escape  from  our  di¬ 
lemmas,  it  awakens  the  element  of  fear  in  our  char¬ 
acter  and  thoroughly  unfits  us  to  meet  the  every¬ 
day  problems  of  life. 


126 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


Nothing  kills  more  surely  than  worry,  and  fret¬ 
fulness  is  so  closely  allied  to  it  that  its  effect  is 
practically  the  same.  Fretfulness  shatters  the 
nerves,  dissipating  the  force  upon  which  we  must 
place  our  dependence  in  the  emergencies  of  life,  so 
causing  us  to  expend  the  greater  part  of  our  most 
valuable  energies  in  bothering  about  things  that 
not  only  can’t  be  helped,  but  that,  in  reality,  are 
scarcely  worth  a  serious  thought. 

Everything  that  ever  has  been  done  well  has 
been  done  calmly.  Many  things  that  have  been 
done  badly  owe  their  failure  to  the  haste,  or  lack 
of  calmness,  with  which  they  have  been  per¬ 
formed. 

The  peace  of  mind  which  helps  us  to  win  so 
many  battles  is  a  habit  that  may  be  formed  with¬ 
out  much  difficulty  by  those  who  are  willing  to 
cultivate  the  tendency  to  forget  rather  than  to  fret 
about  the  trivial  mishaps  that  are  so  often  en¬ 
countered  in  life.  The  trouble  with  many  people 
is  that,  while  strong  in  meeting  great  emergencies. 


The  Law  of  Economy 


127 


they  lose  control  over  themselves  as  soon  as  one  or 
two  little  things  go  wrong.  It  is  as  if  a  man  should 
climb  a  great  mountain  safely  only  to  fall  and 
break  his  neck  by  stubbing  his  toe  upon  a  carpet 
tack. 

These  are  some  of  the  phases  of  economy — 
the  economy  that  those  who  would  succeed  must 
practice — for  it  is  only  by  conserving  all  our  re¬ 
sources  that  we  can  hope  to  rise  above  the  limits 
of  mediocrity  in  any  field  of  human  endeavor. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

The  Law  of  Temperance. 

To  those  who  have  attained  years  of  maturity 
the  maintenance  of  the  physical  equilibrium  may 
seem  like  a  very  commonplace  thing,  but,  if  we 
stop  to  think  about  it,  it  is  something  of  a  mystery 
to  us — even  now.  It  was  by  practice  that  we 
learned  to  stand  erect.  It  was  by  practice  that  we 
learned  to  walk,  just  as  it  is  by  practice  that  we 
have  discovered  the  best  way  of  performing  many 
other  feats  that  are  required  of  us.  Yet,  with  all 
this  practice,  what  a  little  thing  it  takes  to  make  us 
lose  our  balance !  A  push,  though  ever  so  gentle, 
may  upset  us — the  smallest  sort  of  an  interruption 
to  our  ordinary  method  of  locomotion  may  bring 
us  to  the  ground — any  persistent  divergence  from 
the  path  of  normal  living  may  accomplish  our 
downfall. 


129 


130 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


These  facts  not  only  show  us  the  necessity  of 
maintaining  the  equilibrium  but  they  furnish  a  text 
from  which  an  excellent  sermon  on  temperance 
might  be  preached,  for  the  term  “  temperance,’* 
in  its  truest  sense,  means  a  perfect  balance  be¬ 
tween  all  parts  of  the  human  machine — the  closest 
adjustment  and  most  thorough  co-operation  be¬ 
tween  the  faculties  of  the  body  and  those  of  the 
mind. 

Undoubtedly  there  are  plenty  of  persons  who 
never  think  of  the  word  “  temperance  ”  in  this 
sense.  To  many  it  is  a  term  that  applies  only  to 
the  drinking  of  alcoholic  liquors,  and  when  they 
refrain  from  the  use  of  beer,  or  the  stronger  bever¬ 
ages,  they  assume  the  right  to  call  themselves 
temperate  people.  In  many  instances  nothing 
could  be  further  from  the  truth. 

Temperance  and  intemperance  are  not  quali¬ 
ties  that  apply  to  one  habit  alone.  To  be  truly 
temperate  it  is  necessary  that  no  practice  shall  be 
carried  to  excess.  That  too  much  tobacco  is  in- 


The  Law  of  Temperance 


131 


jurious  to  the  physical  health  is  scarcely  a  de¬ 
batable  question,  yet  it  is  just  as  true  that  too 
much  of  anything  else  will  be  quite  as  likely  to 
work  an  injury  in  one  direction  or  another.  To 
maintain  the  condition  of  good  health,  one  cannot 
be  intemperate  in  anything.  It  is  the  individual 
who  strikes  pretty  close  to  the  average  in  every¬ 
thing  who  is  the  healthy  and  successful  as  well  as 
the  most  temperate  man. 

Success  is  so  difficult  of  attainment — competi¬ 
tion  in  the  race  we  are  running  is  so  great — that 
no  one  can  afford  to  put  on  the  additional  weight 
that  a  bad  habit  necessitates.  Looked  at  from 
a  purely  selfish  point  of  view,  and  without  regard 
to  the  ethical  aspects  of  the  question,  no  one  has 
so  certain  a  prospect  of  “  walking  away  from  the 
field  *'  that  he  can  take  the  chance  of  failure  that 
such  a  handicap  requires.  Undoubtedly,  over-in¬ 
dulgence  in  alcoholic  stimulants  is  one  of  the  worst 
of  these  bad  habits,  for  it  is  a  well-established  fact 
that  no  man  can  attend  properly  to  his  business  in- 


132 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


terests  and  at  the  same  time  drink  much  liquor. 
Even  the  man  who  confines  his  drinking  to  those 
hours  of  the  day  when  he  is  popularly  supposed  to 
be  at  leisure  soon  finds  that  the  habit  interferes 
with  his  capacity  as  a  producer,  for  business  and 
dissipation  mix  no  better  than  oil  and  water.  To 
attain  a  success  that  will  be  to  any  marked  degree 
permanent  it  is  necessary  that  there  should  be  a 
healthy  mind  as  well  as  a  strong  body,  and  any¬ 
thing  that  has  a  tendency  to  weaken  the  mental  or 
physical  condition  is  a  serious  violation  of  the  law 
of  temperance. 

To  train  the  mind  properly,  and  to  keep  it  in 
good  trim  to  perform  all  the  duties  that  may  de¬ 
volve  upon  it,  one  must  go  to  work  very  much  as 
the  athlete  does  when  called  upon  to  train  his 
body  for  an  important  contest. 

If  you  have  ever  watched  the  professional  ath¬ 
lete  at  work  you  must  have  noticed  how  careful 
he  is  to  maintain  the  evenness  of  his  life,  especially 
during  the  training  period.  He  knows  that  if  he 


The  Law  of  Temperance 


133 


drinks,  smokes,  or  eats  to  excess  his  muscles  will 
refuse  to  do  his  bidding.  He  realizes  that  if  he 
deprives  himself  of  the  amount  of  sleep  that  his 
body  demands  his  nerves  will  no  longer  be  subject 
to  his  will.  If  he  lies  about  all  day,  taking  no 
exercise,  his  muscles  will  grow  soft  and  flabby. 
Neither  must  he  overtrain,  lest  he  strain  them.  In¬ 
stead  of  doing  any  one  thing  to  excess,  therefore, 
he  does  all  things  in  moderation,  and  his  wonder¬ 
ful  exhibitions  of  strength  and  skill  are  the  result 
of  this  practical  demonstration  of  the  science  of 
living. 

While  we  may  not  be  athletes,  and  may  have 
no  occasion  to  spend  so  much  time  in  studying 
the  niceties  of  physical  training,  this  phase  of  ath¬ 
letic  work  emphasizes  one  lesson  that  it  will  be 
profitable  for  all  of  us  to  remember.  Thus,  from 
this  example,  we  learn  that  to  keep  the  body  active 
and  supple  and  to  maintain  the  proper  ratio  of 
mental  and  physical  strength,  one  must  be  temper¬ 
ate  in  all  things.  To  keep  the  mind  alert — the 


134 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


mental  man  in  a  fit  condition  to  grapple  instantly 
with  any  problem  that  may  present  itself — one 
may  do  all  things  moderately,  but  one  must  do 
nothing  to  excess.  The  only  way  in  which  we 
can  hope  to  be  able  to  take  advantage  of  the  op¬ 
portunities  that  are  constantly  occurring,  and 
which  mean  so  much  in  life,  is  to  be  ready  to 
meet  each  emergency.  The  only  course  of  train¬ 
ing  that  will  put  a  man  in  this  condition  is  a  sane 
and  even  mode  of  living. 

Of  course  it  is  sometimes  difficult  to  draw  the 
line  between  excess  and  moderation,  or  to  say 
where  an  act  ceases  to  be  a  virtue  and  becomes  a 
vice.  This  is  particularly  true  in  the  case  of  the 
privations  to  which  we  subject  ourselves  in  our 
struggle  for  success,  for  while  in  one  respect  they 
may  appear  ennobling,  from  another  viewpoint 
they  may  actually  assume  the  aspect  of  criminality. 

We  read  the  story  of  Abraham  Lincoln’s  boy¬ 
hood,  and  we  picture  him — a  lanky  youth  in 
rough  homespun — stretched  out  upon  the  floor 


The  Law  of  Temperance 


135 


before  the  fire,  straining  his  eyes  that  he  may  see 
to  read  by  the  fitful  light  from  the  backlog  and 
the  embers,  for  it  was  thus  that  he  secured  his 
education  while  others  slept.  We  read,  too,  in 
the  lives  of  many  great  men,  that  the  success  for 
which  we  admire  them  was  due  to  the  fact  that 
they  willingly  deprived  themselves  of  comforts — 
even  of  necessities — in  the  days  before  the  world 
became  acquainted  with  them.  All  this  seems  very 
commendable  when  we  view  it  in  the  light  of  their 
later  achievements,  and  we  are  not  unlikely  to 
forget  that  there  may  be  another  side  to  the 
picture. 

Take,  as  an  example,  the  case  of  Henry  Har- 
land,  whose  life  was  snuffed  out  a  few  years 
ago  in  payment  of  a  debt  which  he  owed  out¬ 
raged  nature.  When  a  young  man,  and  strug¬ 
gling  for  recognition,  he  worked  all  day  at  a  desk 
in  one  of  the  municipal  offices,  depriving  himself 
of  all  but  four  hours’  sleep  that  he  might  spend  the 
night  perfecting  the  almost  inimitable  studies  of 


136 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


Ghetto  life  that  he  printed  under  the  pseudonym 
of  “  Sidney  Luska.” 

To  some  degree  Henry  Harland  won  the  fame 
that  he  desired.  At  least,  he  succeeded  in  writ¬ 
ing  several  novels  that  numbered  among  the 
“  best  sellers  ”  and  so  made  his  name  known 
wherever  English  fiction  is  read.  Before  he 
fairly  had  time  to  enjoy  this  success,  however,  and 
while  he  was  still  scarcely  more  than  a  youth, 
death  came  suddenly.  The  physicians  agreed 
that  it  was  due  solely  to  the  fact  that  he  had 
undermined  his  constitution  by  loss  of  sleep. 

In  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  Henry  Har¬ 
land  was  a  temperate  man.  He  neither  drank  nor 
smoked  to  excess,  yet  his  intemperance,  while  pur¬ 
sued  in  a  different  direction,  weakened  his  body  to 
the  point  of  dissolution.  He  paid  for  his  success 
with  his  life  and  it  is  an  exorbitant  price  to  pay — 
even  for  success!  If  he  had  slept  a  little  longer  he 
would  have  lived  longer.  He  might  have  been  a 
little  older  when  fame  finally  smiled  upon  him; 


The  Law  of  Temperance 


137 


the  big  checks  from  the  publishers  might  have 
been  delayed  for  a  year  or  two,  but  the  man  would 
have  lived  to  enjoy  them.  The  brain,  unwearied, 
would  have  produced  still  greater  works,  and  the 
success  which  came  at  last  might  have  been  that 
undying  fame  that  is  so  different  from  the  little 
brief  applause  for  which  so  many  men  and  women 
seem  willing  to  lay  down  their  lives. 

Next  to  excessive  indulgence  in  strong  drink 
there  is  no  form  of  intemperance  that  is  likely  to 
prove  so  injurious  as  the  habit  of  curtailing  the 
hours  of  sleep.  It  is  true  that  the  still  hours  of  the 
night,  when  the  telephone  is  silent  and  there  is  no 
danger  of  interruption  from  any  source,  are  more 
conducive  to  fruitful  labors  than  those  of  the  day, 
but  even  this  circumstance  will  not  atone  for  the 
fact  that  the  working  period  is  extended  to  such  a 
degree  as  to  shorten  the  recuperative  period  be¬ 
yond  the  sane  limit. 

As  to  just  what  that  limit  is,  even  scientists  are 
not  agreed,  but  it  is  pretty  generally  admitted  that 


138 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


those  who  sleep  eight  hours  in  each  twenty- 
four  live  longer  and  maintain  their  health  more 
evenly  than  those  who  sleep  six  hours.  Seven 
hours  may  do,  if  the  emergency  is  pressing,  but 
six  hours  is  too  short  a  period  for  sleep,  and  those 
who  restrict  themselves  to  that  amount  of  time  in 
bed,  or  less,  are  accumulating  mental  and  physical 
conditions  that  are  certain  to  result  in  serious  dis¬ 
aster  before  many  years  have  passed. 

We  usually  think  of  food  as  the  thing  that  is 
most  necessary  for  the  proper  continuance  of  life, 
when  it  is  really  one  of  the  minor  considerations. 
Thus,  we  could  go  without  food  for  a  much  longer 
time  than  without  sleep.  Cases  are  known  of  men 
who  have  fasted  from  forty  to  sixty  days,  but  they 
could  not  have  gone  without  sleep  for  one-tenth 
part  of  that  period. 

The  individual  who  begrudges  the  time  that  he 
spends  in  rest  and  recreation  is  as  guilty  of  the 
crime  of  suicide  as  the  man  who  deliberately  takes 
his  own  life.  In  fact  he  attains  the  same  end — 


The  Law  of  Temperance 


139 


more  slowly,  perhaps,  but  with  just  as  much  cer¬ 
tainty — and  his  success  in  accumulating  money  or 
winning  distinction  does  not  absolve  him  for  the 
offense  that  he  has  committed  against  the  laws  of 
Nature. 

The  matter  of  exercise  is  another  phase  of  in¬ 
temperance  into  which  the  busy  man  is  not  unlikely 
to  drift.  Working  in  the  shop  or  office,  and  com¬ 
pelled  to  spend  the  greater  part  of  the  day  indoors, 
he  continues  to  live,  year  in  and  year  out,  with 
about  one-half  the  amount  of  fresh  air  that  his 
lungs  actually  demand.  Indeed,  he  becomes  so 
accustomed  to  this  sort  of  living  that  he  does  not 
realize  that  he  is  depriving  himself  of  one  of  the 
factors  which  not  only  tend  toward  better  health 
and  longer  life  but  which  also,  in  creating  greater 
energy,  materially  increase  his  chances  of  success. 

It  is  not  so  much  because  the  muscles  need  exer¬ 
cising  that  the  physicians  advise  outdoor  recrea¬ 
tions.  There  are  many  ways  in  which  the  muscular 
exercise  might  be  obtained  with  a  few  minutes’ 


140 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


work  in  the  house,  but  this  does  not  answer  the 
purpose  at  all.  It  is  for  the  reason  that  they  afford 
greater  opportunities  for  fresh  air  that  walking  and 
golf  are  advocated.  The  physician  knows  that 
the  human  lungs  need  much  fresh  air  and  he  en¬ 
deavors  to  make  his  patients  walk  around  enough 
to  meet  this  bodily  requirement.  We  deem  a  man 
most  foolish  when  he  sacrifices  his  opportunities  to 
succeed  for  the  questionable  pleasures  that  he  de¬ 
rives  from  the  drink  or  drug  habit,  but  it  is  an  open 
question  if  the  man  who  gives  way  to  such  a  weak¬ 
ness  is  more  to  be  blamed  than  he  who  limits  his 
capacity  for  attainment  simply  because  he  will  not 
take  from  business  duties  the  time  required  for  the 
proper  observance  of  the  imperative  laws  of  health. 

There  is  still  another  statute  that  must  be  re¬ 
membered  in  this  connection,  and  this  is  the  law 
which  stipulates  that  every  human  being  must  have 
a  certain  amount  of  agreeable  recreation  in  order 
to  maintain  the  equilibrium  between  mind  and 
body.  It  may  be  true  that  the  matter  of  recreation 


The  Law  of  Temperance 


141 


does  not  always  assume  the  same  aspect  of  vital 
importance  that  such  factors  as  food,  drink,  sleep 
and  fresh  air  represent,  yet  it  is  not  easy  to  say  to 
what  degree  the  pleasures  of  life  may  safely  be 
neglected  by  those  who  aspire  to  achieve  life’s 
highest  possibilities.  There  can  be  no  question  but 
that  the  mind  which  devotes  itself  exclusively  to  one 
line  of  effort  soon  becomes  a  thoroughly  one-sided 
mind,  a  mind  thinking  along  such  narrow  chan¬ 
nels  that  it  can  conceive  of  nothing — can  see  and 
grasp  no  opportunities — outside  of  its  own  re¬ 
stricted  environment.  All  philosophers  in  study¬ 
ing  the  human  mind,  have  appreciated  the  value 
of  the  place  that  play  maintains  in  the  great  scheme 
of  life.  The  venerable  Walt  Whitman,  in  one  of 
his  latest  utterances,  summing  up  the  wide  experi¬ 
ences  of  a  lifetime,  said:  “  It  is  a  study — a  pro¬ 
found  study — the  play  in  life  as  much  as  the  work 

in  life — and  it  is  all  right,  too . 

Sometimes  you  don’t  pay  too  much  for  play  if  you 
pay  your  last  cent  for  it.” 


142 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


To  find  a  comprehensive  definition  for  the  word 
“  temperance,”  it  must  also  be  made  to  apply  to 
our  thoughts  and  emotions — to  the  operations  that 
may  be  entirely  mental  as  well  as  to  those  that 
.more  generally  affect  the  physical  health — for  it  is 
only  through  obedience  to  the  laws  of  temperance 
that  man  can  establish  his  reign  over  the  kingdom 
of  self.  The  gift  of  individuality  is,  perhaps,  the 
greatest  blessing  of  mankind,  but  to  retain  the  sov¬ 
ereignty  that  has  been  bestowed  upon  him  he  must 
retain  his  control  over  his  kingdom  in  thought  and 
word  as  well  as  in  deed.  By  giving  way  to  the 
passions  he  steps  down  from  the  throne  and  per¬ 
mits  his  emotions  to  take  his  place.  From  a  king 
he  descends  to  the  rank  of  the  slave — a  slave  to  the 
passions  that  he  himself  has  fostered. 

Our  study  of  the  brain  has  taught  us  that  habits 
grow  by  repetition — that  those  which  might  easily 
be  checked,  were  they  taken  in  time,  may  become 
so  firmly  fixed  as  to  be  almost  unerasable  if  per¬ 
mitted  to  continue  unsuppressed.  Of  these  the 


The  Law  of  Temperance 


143 


loss  of  self-control,  as  witnessed  in  exhibitions  of 
temper,  is  liable  to  exercise  the  most  vital  effect 
upon  the  affairs  of  the  business  life,  and  more  than 
one  failure  to  succeed  might  be  traced  to  the  fact 
that  passion  was  permitted  to  take  the  place  that 
reason  should  have  occupied. 

In  brief,  true  temperance  is  but  a  synonym  for 
perfect  self-control,  and  while  the  control  of  self 
alone  may  not  be  the  great  secret  of  success,  it 
makes  the  way  to  the  attainment  of  our  highest 
ideals  so  smooth  that  there  is  nothing  to  check  our 
progress.  “  When  God  created  man  in  His  own 
image,”  as  Jordan  has  said,  “  His  first  gift  to  him 
was  dominion,  and  the  greatest  dominion  is  over — 
self.” 


r 


i 


CHAPTER  X. 

The  Law  of  Compensation. 

“  If  at  first  you  don’t  succeed  ” - 

You  know  the  rest,  for  we  used  to  write  the 
words  over  and  over  again  in  the  copy-books  at 
school. 

“  If  at  first  you  don’t  succeed,  try,  try  again.” 

I  fear  that  many  of  us  wrote  the  phrase  much 
as  a  parrot  talks.  We  may  have  exercised  great 
care  in  shaping  the  letters.  We  may  never  have 
forgotten  to  dot  the  ”  i’s  ”  and  cross  the  “  t’s,” 
but,  when  the  lesson  was  ended,  we  couldn’t  have 
comprehended  what  the  words  actually  meant. 
Otherwise  we  should  not  become  so  discouraged 
when  our  efforts  seem  to  meet  with  failure. 

Among  all  the  maxims  that  were  taught  at 
school,  not  one  embodied  a  more  vital  truth  than 
this  short  sentence.  Success  is  a  matter  of  law,  not 
of  chance,  and  were  it  possible  for  us  to  know  just 

145 


146 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


how  to  apply  the  laws  properly  at  the  right  time, 
the  possibility  of  failure  might  be  practically  elim¬ 
inated.  "  Unfortunately,  our  mastery  over  life  is 
not  so  complete  that  we  can  always  anticipate  and 
frustrate  the  conditions  that  sometimes  combine  to 
wreck  our  best  laid  plans.  Even  those  who  have 
studied  the  art  of  merging  psychology  with  busi¬ 
ness  occasionally  fail  deplorably,  but  usually  the 
fault  is  one  that  they  can  detect,  though  too  late, 
perhaps,  to  make  the  avoidance  of  disaster  pos¬ 
sible. 

It  is  only  the  very  young,  or  the  very  inexperi¬ 
enced  individual  who  can  truthfully  assert  that  he 
has  always  “  made  good.”  Take  the  big  men  in 
the  business  world — you  will  find  in  their  lives  no 
record  of  unbroken  successes.  It  may  be  true  that 
they  deserve  to  be  rated  as  “  successful  ”  men  be¬ 
cause  they  have  succeeded  in  performing  what  we 
term  great  deeds.  Could  we  look  into  their  inner 
lives,  however,  we  should  soon  see  that  the  things 
they  touched  did  not  always  turn  into  gold.  We 


The  Law  of  Compensation 


147 


know  them  because  of  their  successful  achieve¬ 
ments.  We  know  nothing  about  the  projects  that 
they  have  undertaken  and  finally  abandoned,  at 
the  cost  of  much  time  and  money.  Such  men  don’t 
employ  press  agents  to  publish  their  failures  that 
the  world  may  read  of  them. 

The  fact  that  a  man  may  have  failed — not  once 
only,  but  several  times — does  not  necessarily  mean 
that  his  case  is  hopeless.  It  is  not  the  failure  itself 
that  damns — it  is  the  effect  that  the  failure  exerts 
upon  us.  History  is  filled  with  incidents  of  men 
who  have  made  the  sorriest  sorts  of  failures,  but 
who  have  redeemed  themselves  afterwards  because 
they  have  followed  the  simple  method  laid  down 
by  the  copy-book  maxim.  Indeed,  it  is  the  only 
way  by  which  failure  may  be  turned  into  success. 
If  at  first  you  don’t  succeed — no  matter  what  kind 
of  a  job  it  is  you  hold,  or  what  sort  of  an  enter¬ 
prise  you  have  undertaken — try  again,  and  keep 
on  trying.  Such  efforts  are  always  rewarded. 


148 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


There  is  a  law  of  compensation  in  life — a  law 
that  stipulates  that  you  are  to  get  what  you  de¬ 
serve,  no  matter  on  which  side  of  the  ledger  the 
balance  stands.  For  every  right  action  you  are 
blessed ;  for  every  wrong  action  you  are  penalized. 
The  reward  may  seem  slow  in  coming,  but — never 
fear! — it  will  come,  and,  when  it  comes,  the  re¬ 
ward  or  the  punishment  will  be  just  as  real  as  the 
original  act  was  real.  The  Biblical  promise  that 
“  to  him  that  hath  shall  be  given,  and  whosoever 
hath  not,  from  him  shall  be  taken  even  that  which 
he  seemeth  to  have,”  holds  true  today,  and  the 
sooner  we  recognize  the  nature  of  the  principles 
that  govern  success  the  more  readily  attainable  it 
will  become. 

As  I  have  already  said,  there  are  those  who 
have  taken  occasion  to  complain  at  what  they  term 
the  “  unjust  discrimination  ”  indicated  in  this  pass¬ 
age,  but  this  is  because  they  do  not  understand  it. 
If  it  meant  that  it  is  the  Divine  purpose  that  the 
rich  man  shall  ever  grow  richer,  while  the  poor 


The  Law  of  Compensation 


149 


man  is  to  have  no  chance  to  become  anything  but 
poorer,  however  strenuously  he  may  struggle  to 
better  his  condition,  it  might  be  possible  to  ques¬ 
tion  the  fairness  of  such  an  arrangement.  For¬ 
tunately,  however,  as  we  have  learned  by  experi¬ 
ence,  personal  effort  is  never  utterly  useless,  nor 
does  this  statement  assert  that  it  can  be.  To  the 
contrary,  it  propounds  a  demonstrable  scientific 
principle  that  is  so  important  as  to  be  well  worth 
further  consideration. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  there  exists  an  at¬ 
traction  between  affinities,  or,  as  we  now  sometimes 
say,  that  “  like  attracts  like,”  and  this  fact,  which 
is  true  of  material  objects,  becomes  just  as  true 
when  applied  to  human  beings  and  their  actions. 
It  is  the  man  who  is  able  to  assert  his  authority  that 
obtains  the  opportunities  to  command.  It  is  the 
man  entirely  capable  of  directing  the  efforts  of 
others  who  holds  the  executive  places  most  success¬ 
fully.  If  a  man  has  a  little  ability  in  these  direc¬ 
tions,  his  power  is  necessarily  restricted,  but  the 


150 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


longer  he  exercises  such  abilities  wisely  the  greater 
become  his  opportunities  to  use  them.  It  is  the 
same  with  the  person  who  has  money.  The  pos¬ 
session  of  a  little  money  enables  a  man  to  command 
more,  by  opening  up  the  way  to  opportunities  of 
which  he  could  have  taken  no  advantage  had  it  not 
been  for  the  cash  in  his  possession.  So,  too,  in  the 
case  of  the  man  who  is  skilled  in  one  of  the  trades, 
the  arts,  or  the  professions.  His  knowledge  gives 
him  the  power  to  seize  opportunities  that  would  be 
beyond  the  reach  of  those  more  ignorant  than  he. 

In  a  word,  the  passage  teaches  the  important 
truth  that  the  only  way  by  which  any  man  can  be¬ 
come  a  power  in  the  world  is  to  be  capable  of 
having  and  holding  the  things  to  which  he  aspires. 
It  means  that  the  money,  the  authority,  or  the 
ability  that  we  desire  to  possess  will  be  given  to  us 
in  accordance  with  our  capacity  to  use  it,  and  that 
if  we  prove  incapable  of  “  making  good  ”  in  small 
opportunities,  the  little  chances  that  are  given  us 


The  Law  of  Compensation 


151 


in  order  to  test  our  strength  will  themselves  be 
taken  away. 

And,  isn’t  this  exactly  what  occurs  in  everyday 
life?  How  easy  it  is  to  recall  instances  in  which 
men  who  appeared  to  have  good  opportunities 
have  been  deprived  of  their  authority  because  they 
were  incapable  of  exercising  it.  They  have  had 
their  positions  of  trust  taken  from  them  because 
they  lacked  the  intelligence,  the  character  or  the 
skill  to  command,  and  the  same  is  true  in  every 
field  of  activity.  Each  person  is  permitted  to 
climb  as  long  as  he  exhibits  the  necessary  strength. 
As  he  ascends,  new  and  greater  opportunities  are 
given  to  him,  and  it  is  only  when  he  fails  to  take 
advantage  of  them  that  his  chances  cease.  In 
plain  English,  the  passage  might  be  rendered  “  to 
him  that  hath  the  capacity  to  ‘  make  good  ’  shall 
be  given  the  opportunity  to  succeed,  and  whoso¬ 
ever  hath  no  capacity,  from  him  shall  be  taken 
even  the  opportunities  which  he  seemeth  to  have.” 


152 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


Another  law  that  is  so  intimately  interwoven 
with  the  law  of  compensation  that  it  is  practically 
but  another  phase  of  the  same  statute  is  what  may 
be  termed  “  the  Law  of  Reciprocity.” 

In  every  plane  of  creation,  from  the  lowest  type 
of  plant  life  to  the  highest  type  of  animal  life, 
everything  is  created  for  a  purpose,  and  that  pur¬ 
pose  is  as  much  one  of  giving  as  it  is  of  receiving. 
The  plant  that  absorbs  its  nutriment  from  the  earth 
and  air  gives  it  forth  again  in  the  form  of  oxygen. 
If  it  fails  to  do  this — if  it  should  endeavor  to  re¬ 
tain  what  it  had  absorbed,  failing  to  give  as  well  as 
get — it  would  pay  the  penalty  of  violating  this 
law  of  natural  reciprocity  with  its  life.  It  is  a 
physical  impossibility  for  a  plant  to  be  selfish  and 
healthy  at  the  same  time. 

Selfishness  is  as  destructive  to  man — though  to 
a  different  degree — as  it  is  to  the  plant.  To  be 
healthfully  successful,  we  must  also  give  as  well  as 
get.  If  we  were  to  devote  all  our  energies  to  the 
work  of  accumulation  and  no  effort  to  the  work  of 


153 


The  Law  of  Compensation 


distribution,  we  should  soon  find  ourselves  utterly 
out  of  harmony  with  life. 

Imagine,  if  you  can,  a  great  reservoir,  a  thou¬ 
sand  times  as  big  in  all  its  dimensions  as  the  largest 
reservoir  you  have  ever  seen,  or  of  which  you  have 
ever  read.  As  originally  constructed,  this  reser¬ 
voir  was  undoubtedly  provided  with  outlets  as 
well  as  inlets — pipes  through  which  the  water 
could  be  carried  out  of  the  reservoir  almost  as 
easily  as  it  could  run  in. 

But  suppose  you  were  to  stop  up  the  outlets! 
What  would  happen?  Almost  before  you  knew 
it  the  reservoir  would  overflow.  It  would  prob¬ 
ably  destroy  itself  and  inundate  the  surrounding 
country. 

Within  each  of  us  there  is  a  reservoir  in  which 
we  store  our  energies  that  we  may  use  them  as  we 
require  them.  Let  this  reservoir  work  naturally 
and  healthfully  and  our  resources  are  turned  into 
the  proper  channels  where  they  operate — first  for 
the  general  good,  and  afterwards,  in  accordance 


154 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


with  nature’s  beneficient  provision  for  reaction,  for 
our  own  benefit  and  growth.  To  be  successful, 
this  law  of  reciprocity  must  be  observed.  It  is  just 
as  impossible  for  a  man  to  keep  on  taking  in  with¬ 
out  giving  out  as  it  is  for  the  plant  to  absorb  with¬ 
out  exhaling. 

It  is  here  that  many  individuals  make  their  grav¬ 
est  mistake,  and  so  turn  what  might  have  been  a 
great  success  into  ignominious  failure.  Because 
things  seem  to  have  started  their  way  they  en¬ 
deavor — perhaps  thoughtlessly,  perhaps  with  de¬ 
liberate  selfishness — to  corner  the  product  of  their 
industry,  keeping  everything  and  giving  nothing  in 
return.  Having  the  first  pleasant  taste  of  pros¬ 
perity  still  fresh  in  their  memory  they  dread  to  let 
any  of  it  escape  them. 

The  ancient  wise  men  who  prepared  the  “  Kab¬ 
balah,”  that  wonderful  book  of  mysteries  that  has 
had  so  marked  an  influence  in  shaping  the  history 
of  the  Jewish  race,  recognized  this,  and  did  not 
fail  to  emphasize  the  truth  that  prosperity  is  a  con- 


155 


The  Law  of  Compensation 

dition  that  is  much  harder  to  bear  than  adversity. 
When  success  is  no  more  than  a  promise,  we  de¬ 
vote  our  best  efforts  to  its  attainment.  When  our 
greatest  ambitions  remain  unsatisfied  we  do  our 
best  work.  Beneath  the  spur  of  necessity  our  most 
heroic  deeds  are  accomplished.  When  the  pre¬ 
liminary  heights  are  scaled,  and  the  first  rewards 
of  victory  have  been  tasted,  the  mettle  of  the  soul 
is  tested. 

There  is  a  danger  in  the  dawn  of  prosperity  that 
adversity  never  presents.  There  is  the  temptation 
to  stop  pulling — the  temptation  to  rest  on  the  oars, 
and  make  the  most  of  the  few  advantages  that 
have  been  gained.  Then  there  is  also  the  tempta¬ 
tion  to  become  too  avaricious — to  want  all  that  we 
can  obtain  and  to  begrudge  giving  the  little  that  the 
law  of  reciprocity  demands  of  us.  As  success  is  a 
matter  of  adjustment,  failure  will  soon  follow  if 
these  sins  against  the  law  are  not  quickly  pruned 


away. 


156 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


It  is  no  uncommon  thing  to  hear  persons  assert 
that  the  opportunities  for  success  today  are  not  so 
great  as  they  were  some  twenty-five  or  thirty  years 
ago.  Undoubtedly  more  people  are  doing  things 
today  than  there  were  in  the  days  when  our  fathers 
were  young,  but  there  are  more  persons  to  make 
use  of  the  products  of  their  industry,  and  the  num¬ 
bers  are  constantly  increasing.  Moreover,  there  is 
no  field  of  endeavor  in  which  great  advancements 

have  not  been  made  during  the  last  quarter  of  a 
century.  As  the  result,  new  fields  have  been 
opened  to  cultivation,  and  new  standards  of  effici¬ 
ency  have  been  established. 

At  the  same  time,  a  comparison  of  the  oppor¬ 
tunities  of  the  present  day  with  those  of  the  last 
two  or  three  decades  shows  that  they  are  of  an  en¬ 
tirely  different  character.  During  the  past  few 
years  the  demands  of  the  new  business  conditions 
have  compelled  men  to  become  more  efficient  and 
the  efforts  at  specializing  that  have  resulted,  have, 
more  than  any  one  factor,  tended  to  make  success 
the  just  reward  for  ability. 


The  Law  of  Compensation 


157 


Study  the  work  of  any  successful  man  and  you 
will  find  him  a  specialist  in  his  particular  line.  He 
may  not  have  as  wide  an  experience  of  general 
knowledge  as  the  man  whom  he  succeeded,  but 
when  it  comes  to  the  work  that  he  is  called  upon  to 
perform,  he  can  do  it  better  than  it  ever  has  been 
done  before. 

The  simple  fact  is  that  we  have  reached  the  ob¬ 
vious  conclusion  that  life  is  too  short  to  enable  any¬ 
body  to  cover  the  entire  field  of  human  knowledge, 
so  we  have  opened  the  industries  to  the  special¬ 
izes,  in  this  way  developing  a  class  of  experts  that 
is  superior  to  any  workman  that  the  world  has 
previously  known. 

To  be  a  conspicuously  successful  man  in  this 
age  it  is  necessary  to  be  something  more  than  cap¬ 
able  and  industrious.  Of  course,  if  a  man  wants 
to  limit  his  capacity  to  these  qualities — if  he  knows 
his  work  reasonably  well  and  is  not  afraid  of  hard 
work — he  still  stands  a  fair  prospect  of  obtaining 
and  keeping  a  moderately  good  position,  but  he 


158 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


can  never  climb  much  higher  until  he  has  entered 
the  rank  of  the  specialists. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  it  sometimes  seems  as  if 
there  might  be  a  lack  of  opportunities,  when  it  is 
merely  a  case  in  which  the  character  of  the  oppor¬ 
tunity  has  changed.  There  are  still  plenty  of  big 
jobs  waiting  for  the  right  man  to  appear  and  claim 
them — more,  in  fact,  than  there  have  been  at  any 
time  since  the  dawn  of  civilization — but  those  who 
presume  to  accept  these  places  in  the  business 
world  must  be  men  of  real  ability  and  originality, 
men  who  have  so  concentrated  both  thought  and 
effort  upon  one  particular  line  of  work  that  they 
may  justly  be  termed  “  specialists.” 

So  far  from  finding  a  cause  for  discouragement 
in  the  present-day  conditions,  therefore,  there  is  no 
reason  why  our  ambitions  should  reach  beyond  the 
bounds  of  the  attainable,  provided  we  are  willing 
to  obey  the  laws  that  make  for  success.  There 
never  was  a  time  when  success  could  be  plucked 


The  Law  of  Compensation 


159 


like  an  apple  from  a  tree,  for  things  that  are  worth 
having  have  always  cost  their  possessor  an  effort, 
and  always  will. 

It  is  one  thing  to  dream  about  the  things  we 
want  to  do.  It  is  another  thing  to  do  them.  Day¬ 
dreams  do  not  amount  to  very  much  until  they 
have  outgrown  the  dream  stage.  Like  aspirations, 
they  simply  point  the  way  to  achievements  that 
are  within  the  realm  of  possibility.  To  realize  the 
possibility,  we  must  stop  dreaming  and  go  to  work. 

Nothing  that  we  aspire  to  accomplish  is  an  im¬ 
possibility  unless  we  make  it  so.  We  have  been 
given  the  tools  with  which  to  work,  but  it  has  been 
left  to  us  to  sharpen  them.  If  through  our  own 
negligence  we  let  them  remain  dull  as  they  were 
before  ambition  suggested  the  great  ideas  now 
surging  through  our  brain,  it  is  our  own  fault  if 
the  plans  we  have  formulated  never  become  any¬ 
thing  more  tangible  than  mental  pictures.  If  we 
possess  the  power  to  realize  our  ambitions,  we  are 
doubly  to  blame  if  our  projects  come  to  nothing. 


160 


The  Ten  Laws  of  Success 


If  we  lack  this  power,  we  still  have  the  means  of 
cultivating  it  within  our  reach.  Success  is  a 
straight  problem  in  sowing  and  reaping.  Luck 
plays  no  part  in  it.  Everything  depends  upon  how 
you  work! 


r 


Date  Due 


'  JU!  ?0’36 

GPR  1 

°  1973 

, 

MAR  14 

T39* 

NOV  ~5  19 

M 

lii-C  -  Q 

ICQ 

V 

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f) 

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BOSTON  COLLEGE 


3  9031 


1771206  8 


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